Giegerich Pitch - Emergency Preparedness
If a plane flies into a building, a crane falls into a building, or a fire engulfs a building, lives will be saved by heroes who are the most well prepared to deal with the emergency. But a building that is also thoroughly prepared for emergency situations can help the people who need to work with, or against, that building to save lives as quickly as possible.Buildings in New York City are much safer if they have been thoroughly checked for safety hazards and evaluated with evacuation and emergency plans in mind. After 9/11, consulting firms and other companies realized the dire need for emergency evaluation teams and a new industry of emergency preparedness companies and evacuation planning firms was born.I will profile one, or several, of these companies and firms to evaluate how effective they are, or have been since their inception and how building emergency preparedness has changed from before 9/11. My story will address how buildings in New York have become better prepared for emergency situations since 9/11, if that is in fact the case. I will also investigate how buildings have complied, or failed to comply, with the 2004 Local Law 26, which states that all buildings over 20 stories in New York must be equipped with emergency evacuation plans, and how emergency preparedness firms help buildings to do so.
Posted by Elizabeth at 9:34 PM 0 comments
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Giegerich Pitch - Emergency Preparedness
If a plane flies into a building, a crane falls into a building, or a fire engulfs a building, lives will be saved by heroes who are the most well prepared to deal with the emergency. But a building that is also thoroughly prepared for emergency situations can help the people who need to work with, or against, that building to save lives as quickly as possible.
Buildings in New York City are much safer if they have been thoroughly checked for safety hazards and evaluated with evacuation and emergency plans in mind. After 9/11, consulting firms and other companies realized the dire need for emergency evaluation teams and a new industry of emergency preparedness companies and evacuation planning firms was born.
I will profile one, or several, of these companies and firms to evaluate how effective they are, or have been since their inception and how building emergency preparedness has changed from before 9/11. My story will address how buildings in New York have become better prepared for emergency situations since 9/11, if that is in fact the case. I will also investigate how buildings have complied, or failed to comply, with the 2004 Local Law 26, which states that all buildings over 20 stories in New York must be equipped with emergency evacuation plans, and how emergency preparedness firms help buildings to do so.
Buildings in New York City are much safer if they have been thoroughly checked for safety hazards and evaluated with evacuation and emergency plans in mind. After 9/11, consulting firms and other companies realized the dire need for emergency evaluation teams and a new industry of emergency preparedness companies and evacuation planning firms was born.
I will profile one, or several, of these companies and firms to evaluate how effective they are, or have been since their inception and how building emergency preparedness has changed from before 9/11. My story will address how buildings in New York have become better prepared for emergency situations since 9/11, if that is in fact the case. I will also investigate how buildings have complied, or failed to comply, with the 2004 Local Law 26, which states that all buildings over 20 stories in New York must be equipped with emergency evacuation plans, and how emergency preparedness firms help buildings to do so.
Toll From NYC Crane Collapse Hits 7
By KAREN MATTHEWS – 1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The last of seven bodies was pulled from the rubble Monday at the site of a crane collapse that obliterated a town house and severely damaged other buildings.
Six construction workers and a woman in town for St. Patrick's Day were killed Saturday when the crane broke away from an apartment tower under construction and toppled like a tree onto buildings as far as a block away. The last three bodies were found Monday.
A preliminary city investigation found that the crane toppled after a steel collar used to tie it to the side of the building fell as workers attempted to install it.
When the equipment fell it damaged a lower steel collar that was a major anchor securing the tower crane. Investigators say that with the elimination of the lower support the counter-weights at the top of the crane's tower caused it to fall.
The crane, which rose 19 stories, came crashing down on a Manhattan neighborhood a few blocks from the United Nations on the city's east side.
All the dead were construction workers except for a woman who was in the four-story town house that was demolished when the crane fell on it.
The woman had come from Miami to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and to visit a friend who lived in the town house, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon on the ground floor of the town house. The woman was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the accident, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.
Twenty-four others were injured, including 11 first responders, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Eight people remained hospitalized Monday, officials said.
The accident occurred while workers were adding tower sections to extend the crane upwards, an operation known as "jumping" the crane, said Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for city buildings department.
While crews were jumping the crane to the 18th floor, a steel collar used to tie the crane to the side of the building fell as workers attempted to install it. That damaged a lower steel collar installed at the ninth floor that served as a major anchor securing the tower crane to the building under construction.
The blocks around the construction site consist mostly of low-rise residential buildings but in recent years developers have erected a number of big condo towers, sparking concerns among residents about the pace of development.
The city had answered 38 complaints and issued more than a dozen violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. None of the violations was related to the crane, Bloomberg said.
On Sunday, the Reliance Construction Group, the project's contractor, released a statement expressing sympathy to the families of the dead and injured and said it was cooperating with government investigators.
Four workers killed in the accident were identified as Wayne Bleidner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, 54, of Farmingdale; Anthony Mazza, 39; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of New York City, police said Sunday. The three people found Monday had not yet been identified.
About 250 cranes operate in the city on any given day, and the accident shouldn't alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites, the mayor said. "This is a very tragic but also a very rare occurrence," he said.
But neighborhood residents and a Manhattan borough official raised concerns about city inspections at the apartment tower.
The neighborhood was struggling to return to normal Monday. One lane of Second Avenue reopened to traffic, and many stores and bars were open for business.
The manager of an Irish bar noted how fortunate it was that the accident didn't happen Monday, when hundreds of thousands of people thronged nearby Fifth Avenue for the annual St. Patrick's Day parade. There are about a half dozen Irish bars in the neighborhood.
"If it happened today there would be carnage," said Jameson's Pub manager Michael Mullooly.
___
Associated Press writers Karen Matthews and Richard Pyle contributed to this report.
(This version corrects name of pub, Jameson's, not Jamison's.)
By KAREN MATTHEWS – 1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The last of seven bodies was pulled from the rubble Monday at the site of a crane collapse that obliterated a town house and severely damaged other buildings.
Six construction workers and a woman in town for St. Patrick's Day were killed Saturday when the crane broke away from an apartment tower under construction and toppled like a tree onto buildings as far as a block away. The last three bodies were found Monday.
A preliminary city investigation found that the crane toppled after a steel collar used to tie it to the side of the building fell as workers attempted to install it.
When the equipment fell it damaged a lower steel collar that was a major anchor securing the tower crane. Investigators say that with the elimination of the lower support the counter-weights at the top of the crane's tower caused it to fall.
The crane, which rose 19 stories, came crashing down on a Manhattan neighborhood a few blocks from the United Nations on the city's east side.
All the dead were construction workers except for a woman who was in the four-story town house that was demolished when the crane fell on it.
The woman had come from Miami to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and to visit a friend who lived in the town house, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon on the ground floor of the town house. The woman was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the accident, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.
Twenty-four others were injured, including 11 first responders, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Eight people remained hospitalized Monday, officials said.
The accident occurred while workers were adding tower sections to extend the crane upwards, an operation known as "jumping" the crane, said Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for city buildings department.
While crews were jumping the crane to the 18th floor, a steel collar used to tie the crane to the side of the building fell as workers attempted to install it. That damaged a lower steel collar installed at the ninth floor that served as a major anchor securing the tower crane to the building under construction.
The blocks around the construction site consist mostly of low-rise residential buildings but in recent years developers have erected a number of big condo towers, sparking concerns among residents about the pace of development.
The city had answered 38 complaints and issued more than a dozen violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. None of the violations was related to the crane, Bloomberg said.
On Sunday, the Reliance Construction Group, the project's contractor, released a statement expressing sympathy to the families of the dead and injured and said it was cooperating with government investigators.
Four workers killed in the accident were identified as Wayne Bleidner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, 54, of Farmingdale; Anthony Mazza, 39; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of New York City, police said Sunday. The three people found Monday had not yet been identified.
About 250 cranes operate in the city on any given day, and the accident shouldn't alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites, the mayor said. "This is a very tragic but also a very rare occurrence," he said.
But neighborhood residents and a Manhattan borough official raised concerns about city inspections at the apartment tower.
The neighborhood was struggling to return to normal Monday. One lane of Second Avenue reopened to traffic, and many stores and bars were open for business.
The manager of an Irish bar noted how fortunate it was that the accident didn't happen Monday, when hundreds of thousands of people thronged nearby Fifth Avenue for the annual St. Patrick's Day parade. There are about a half dozen Irish bars in the neighborhood.
"If it happened today there would be carnage," said Jameson's Pub manager Michael Mullooly.
___
Associated Press writers Karen Matthews and Richard Pyle contributed to this report.
(This version corrects name of pub, Jameson's, not Jamison's.)
Thursday, March 13, 2008
History: Pitch
(Starkey: History Story Pitch)
As I wrote in my budget line, building code changes in Manhattan have often pitted safety concerns against ones related to the cost of building in an undeniably expensive city. I’m interested in how these two arguments relate. The story will examine each major era of change in the city’s building code, starting with the period in the early 20th century after the Triangle fire. The landmark changes in 1937 and 1968 were written largely with builders’ economic concerns in mind. Fireproofing standards are weaker now than they were in the 30s, according to experts quoted in media reports. Structural columns in high-rises only must last two hours in a fire, not four as required before, a change made because building became too costly. After the 2001 attacks, it seems, these two sets of concerns have again been set against each other as the city continues to embark on its fourth major era of building code change. This is a story about the history of change, and how changes brought the city’s code to where it is today and where it will go in the future. I have already contacted people at Cornell, where professors and students embarked on arguably the most comprehensive Web-based project to study the Triangle Fire, which happened on this campus. I will interview people like Monica Gabrielle, chairwoman of the Skyscraper Safety Committee, who called the structural column dilemma “the dumbest thing I have ever heard.” I will interview Steven Spinola, former president of the Real Estate Board of New York who told The New York Times, “We’re not ashamed to admit to say we are interested in the dollar.” And I will attempt to interview people in the middle, like Patricia Lancaster, the building commissioner. This passage from The New York Times in 2004 perfectly presents the point I hope to expand upon.
“To test just what cost differences the new codes might make, city officials are studying building projects now in progress to compare prices under the old and model codes, said Ms. Lancaster, the buildings commissioner. If a certain part of the model code turns out to be significantly costlier, she said, the city will reconsider that provision. Despite the focus on the bottom line, she said, ''I am committed to ensuring that the new code is as safe or safer than the code today.’”
As I wrote in my budget line, building code changes in Manhattan have often pitted safety concerns against ones related to the cost of building in an undeniably expensive city. I’m interested in how these two arguments relate. The story will examine each major era of change in the city’s building code, starting with the period in the early 20th century after the Triangle fire. The landmark changes in 1937 and 1968 were written largely with builders’ economic concerns in mind. Fireproofing standards are weaker now than they were in the 30s, according to experts quoted in media reports. Structural columns in high-rises only must last two hours in a fire, not four as required before, a change made because building became too costly. After the 2001 attacks, it seems, these two sets of concerns have again been set against each other as the city continues to embark on its fourth major era of building code change. This is a story about the history of change, and how changes brought the city’s code to where it is today and where it will go in the future. I have already contacted people at Cornell, where professors and students embarked on arguably the most comprehensive Web-based project to study the Triangle Fire, which happened on this campus. I will interview people like Monica Gabrielle, chairwoman of the Skyscraper Safety Committee, who called the structural column dilemma “the dumbest thing I have ever heard.” I will interview Steven Spinola, former president of the Real Estate Board of New York who told The New York Times, “We’re not ashamed to admit to say we are interested in the dollar.” And I will attempt to interview people in the middle, like Patricia Lancaster, the building commissioner. This passage from The New York Times in 2004 perfectly presents the point I hope to expand upon.
“To test just what cost differences the new codes might make, city officials are studying building projects now in progress to compare prices under the old and model codes, said Ms. Lancaster, the buildings commissioner. If a certain part of the model code turns out to be significantly costlier, she said, the city will reconsider that provision. Despite the focus on the bottom line, she said, ''I am committed to ensuring that the new code is as safe or safer than the code today.’”
Scaffold Safety Pitch (Steagall)
There has been increased focus on worker's rights in recent months, owing to several fatal accidents from high rise construction sites. On Jan. 14 Yurley Vanchytsky fell 42 stories to his death from the Trump SoHo tower. Jose Palacios fell 12 stories from a Clinton Hill project. And the list goes on.
These accidents have prompted a Scaffold Worker Safety Task Force, but the commitment to ensuring worker's rights is called into doubt by recent proposals to gut Section 240 of the Labor Law. New York is currently the only state to have such a law, which reserves for worker's the right to sue their employers should they fall and sustain debilitating, or mortal, injuries. Pro-business types blame it for rising insurance premiums, which they claim make their costs unnecessarily high, and Mayor Bloomberg has expressed support for revising the law. Pro-worker types cite it as a vital tool in preserving worker's rights.
At present the city cannot track contractor's performance across job sites, complicating (or, better said, negating) the possibility of holding contractor's accountable for the on-site protection of their workers. Also at issue is the use of non-union workers, who the unions claim make for a more accident-prone jobsite.
The city provides training on scaffold safety, but they use vague terminology when explaining what, exactly, that training consists of, and how effectively it is enforced. They also have no mechanisms of enforcement. In response to the Scaffold Worker Safety Task Force finding that "speaking English as a second language, or speaking a language different than that spoken on the job site was often a factor in fatal construction accidents," they have started outreach events in all five boroughs, distributing safety information in multiple languages. But how effective, and comprehensive, is this program? How many workers actually receive the training?
Through interviews with contractors, scaffold providers, workers, and acquaintance with the training materials provided to scaffold workers, I will explore the current situation in the city. In addition, I'll be looking at the unfolding debate on the Labor Law 240, contacting union leaders, contractors, and business organizations who are organizing with the aim of repealing, or heavily "reforming" the law.
My project will also include a video component, which explains the laws regarding scaffold safety with visual examples of the proper, and improper, construction, and use, of scaffolding. I have already begun compiling footage of various job sites around the city, particularly those that have already witnessed worker accidents.
These accidents have prompted a Scaffold Worker Safety Task Force, but the commitment to ensuring worker's rights is called into doubt by recent proposals to gut Section 240 of the Labor Law. New York is currently the only state to have such a law, which reserves for worker's the right to sue their employers should they fall and sustain debilitating, or mortal, injuries. Pro-business types blame it for rising insurance premiums, which they claim make their costs unnecessarily high, and Mayor Bloomberg has expressed support for revising the law. Pro-worker types cite it as a vital tool in preserving worker's rights.
At present the city cannot track contractor's performance across job sites, complicating (or, better said, negating) the possibility of holding contractor's accountable for the on-site protection of their workers. Also at issue is the use of non-union workers, who the unions claim make for a more accident-prone jobsite.
The city provides training on scaffold safety, but they use vague terminology when explaining what, exactly, that training consists of, and how effectively it is enforced. They also have no mechanisms of enforcement. In response to the Scaffold Worker Safety Task Force finding that "speaking English as a second language, or speaking a language different than that spoken on the job site was often a factor in fatal construction accidents," they have started outreach events in all five boroughs, distributing safety information in multiple languages. But how effective, and comprehensive, is this program? How many workers actually receive the training?
Through interviews with contractors, scaffold providers, workers, and acquaintance with the training materials provided to scaffold workers, I will explore the current situation in the city. In addition, I'll be looking at the unfolding debate on the Labor Law 240, contacting union leaders, contractors, and business organizations who are organizing with the aim of repealing, or heavily "reforming" the law.
My project will also include a video component, which explains the laws regarding scaffold safety with visual examples of the proper, and improper, construction, and use, of scaffolding. I have already begun compiling footage of various job sites around the city, particularly those that have already witnessed worker accidents.
Air Quality: story pitch
(Mike Weiss)
Dr. Paul Lioy works at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. A foremost expert on the airborne health hazards created by the terrorist action of 9/11, he has authored several papers on the health issues related to the disaster and has reached this conclusion: within three years of 9/11, the Federal government should have done three things:
1. State unequivocably what happened on 9/11 in terms of the health hazards, specifying how and why the government failed to properly alert the public. Basically, why 8,000 people were unnecessarily injured by contaminated air.
2. State what the Federal government is doing now to correct the mismanagement of 9/11 so that if a similar event occurs, it will be handled better.
3. State what the Federal government needs the public to do so that we are better prepared for another terrorist attack.
Since the government has not answered these questions, I will attempt to do so. As part of the class project to determine how high-rise building safety in NYC has improved since 9/11, I will determine how the air quality monitoring and alerting system, an aspect of high-rise safety, has developed since the WTC disaster.
Primarily with the help of Dr. Lioy and David Newman, who was formerly part of EPA’s WTC Expert Review Panel and is now working for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, I will try to trace the way the government should have responded to the public health hazards of 9/11, explain why this did not happen, and why no meaningful steps are currently being taken to improve preparedness.
Dr. Paul Lioy works at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. A foremost expert on the airborne health hazards created by the terrorist action of 9/11, he has authored several papers on the health issues related to the disaster and has reached this conclusion: within three years of 9/11, the Federal government should have done three things:
1. State unequivocably what happened on 9/11 in terms of the health hazards, specifying how and why the government failed to properly alert the public. Basically, why 8,000 people were unnecessarily injured by contaminated air.
2. State what the Federal government is doing now to correct the mismanagement of 9/11 so that if a similar event occurs, it will be handled better.
3. State what the Federal government needs the public to do so that we are better prepared for another terrorist attack.
Since the government has not answered these questions, I will attempt to do so. As part of the class project to determine how high-rise building safety in NYC has improved since 9/11, I will determine how the air quality monitoring and alerting system, an aspect of high-rise safety, has developed since the WTC disaster.
Primarily with the help of Dr. Lioy and David Newman, who was formerly part of EPA’s WTC Expert Review Panel and is now working for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, I will try to trace the way the government should have responded to the public health hazards of 9/11, explain why this did not happen, and why no meaningful steps are currently being taken to improve preparedness.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)