Category Archives: Disaster Preparedness

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NYC Crane Collapse Part of a Troubling Trend

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NYC Crane Collapse

Last week’s crane collapse in Lower Manhattan, which killed one person and injured three others, has heightened focus on crane safety, resulting in stricter rules for operators. The 565-foot crane toppled as it was being secured against high winds as a safety precaution.

More than 140 firefighters responded to the disaster in addition to police officers and utility workers who were there in case of gas leaks or other damage caused by the impact.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called for an investigation and instituted new safety policies effective immediately, while ordering that 376 other crawler cranes and 53 larger tower cranes currently operating in the city also be secured. The new rules require crawler cranes to cease operations and go into safety mode when there is a forecast for steady wind speeds of at least 20 miles per hour, or gusts of at least 30 m.p.h. Previously, cranes were allowed to operate until measured wind speeds reached 30 m.p.h. or gusts increased to 40 m.p.h.

“I want people to hear me loud and clear: We’ve had some construction site incidents that are very troubling,” de Blasio said at a news conference. “We have more and more inspectors who are going to get on top of that. We’re going to be very tough on those companies.”

He added, “We’ll send advisories to crane engineers when wind conditions warrant it, and engineers will be required to certify that they will indeed cease operations. If we don’t receive this certification, we will be issuing violations and we will raise the base penalty for failure to safeguard a site from the current $4,800 to $10,000.”

While construction in the city has increased over the past two years, the New York Times reported that the rise in deaths and injuries has exceeded the rate of new construction, that supervision at building sites was often lacking, and that preventative safety steps were not being taken.

Indeed, the list of incidents involving cranes has grown to eight since 2008, according to ABC News and the Associated Press.

— March 2008: A nearly 200-foot-tall crane fell as it was being lengthened in a neighborhood near the U.N. headquarters, demolishing a townhouse and killing six construction workers and a tourist. The crane rigger was tried and acquitted of manslaughter. An inspector accused of falsely saying he had checked the crane days before it toppled was acquitted of charges related to the collapse but convicted of falsifying inspection records related to other cranes.

— May 2008: A tower crane snapped, fell apart and crashed into a Manhattan apartment building, killing the crane operator and a construction worker on the ground. The crane owner was acquitted of manslaughter. A mechanic pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide. Together, the 2008 collapses prompted the resignation of the city buildings commissioner and a bribery case in which the city’s chief crane inspector pleaded guilty to taking payoffs to fake inspection and licensing exam results. The collapses also led to new safety measures, including hiring more inspectors and expanding training requirements and inspection checklists.

However, Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a 2014 audit that the city Department of Buildings hadn’t fully implemented safety recommendations on cranes and other issues, and Stringer reiterated his concerns Friday. The Department of Buildings disputed some of the audit’s conclusions, but spokesman Joe Soldevere said the agency had implemented many of the comptroller’s recommendations and “there is more oversight of cranes in place than ever before.”

— October 2012: A crane’s boom nearly snapped off and dangled precariously over a block near Carnegie Hall during Superstorm Sandy, as winds gusted to an estimated 80 to 100 mph. No one was injured, but people in a nearby hotel and other neighboring buildings had to flee in the midst of the storm as engineers scaled 74 stories to make sure the crane wasn’t in danger of falling.

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— April 2012: A mobile crane’s boom fell and broke apart while hauling rebar at a subway station construction site, killing a worker. The site was exempt from most city construction safety rules because it belonged to a state transit authority.

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— January 2013: A crane’s 170-foot-long boom fell and pulled down part of the wooden framework of an apartment tower under construction in Queens, injuring seven workers. Three workers had to be extricated from beneath fallen machinery.

— April 2015: Hydraulics malfunctioned on a small crane mounted on a truck while a worker was inspecting it in Manhattan, causing the boom to collapse and fall on him, killing him. The device wasn’t subject to the same regulations and inspections as larger cranes.

— May 2015: A mobile crane dropped a 13-ton air conditioning unit being placed atop a Manhattan office building. The air conditioning equipment fell 28 stories into the middle of an avenue. Ten people were injured by debris, and part of the building facade was shattered.

Overcoming ‘Balkanization’ of Business Continuity Planning

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Fragmentation

To be sustainable, organizations must prepare for crises that occur or risks that crystalize. General responses to those threats include alternative office sites, IT back-ups and communication protocols. As reality demonstrates over and over, it is critically important to have a strong leader in a crisis situation, be it the captain of a ship in a storm, the commanding officer of a platoon under fire or the CEO of a company in turmoil. A cacophony of contradicting orders or disintegration in the line of command is the surest way to increase a disaster’s impact and the time needed to recover.

Instead of creating a strong BCP landscape with clear lines of command and control, however, we more often see “balkanization,” or fragmentation of responsibilities. Business continuity planning, environmental health and safety, operational risk and IT disaster recovery are different teams with overlapping roles and responsibilities for crisis management.

The newest buzzword is resilience, which is discussed in a growing number of articles and lectures and defined as the “ability to bounce back to a normal operating status after a state of crisis.” There are also a number of overlapping areas with the aforementioned functions—and that is just on an intra-company level. The OECD has issued Guidelines for Resilience System Analysis, urging member states to set up resilience management on a country level basis.

Recent private initiatives like the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) by the Rockefeller Foundation brings resilience management to an urban level. So if a natural disaster hits a major city, thousands of firms, and the city itself, will invoke a patchwork of crisis plans. For a larger disaster, there might also be a national crisis plan. Are there clear lines of command, however? Is everybody aware of what to do? We doubt it.

Modern BCP management does not need more specialization and buzzwords, but coordination of the different functions and initiatives to provide a clear, consistent and timely response. One of the most pressing tasks is establishing a common risk language to ensure that all stakeholders involved in the process have the same understanding. For example: While the 100RC initiative is coining the term CRO for chief resilience officer, the acronym is also widely used as an abbreviation for chief risk officer. So while talking about roles and responsibilities of a CRO, everyone involved should have a clear understanding about which CRO is meant.

100RC also looks at urban resilience in terms of surviving and thriving, regardless of the challenges—be they acute shocks (such as severe weather or earthquakes) or chronic stress (long term unemployment and violent crime)—and it seeks a much wider remit than the traditional concept of resilience as “the ability to bounce back from an event.”

The response is to call for a more coordinated approach working across multiple stakeholders through the chief resilience officer who, according to Michael Berkowitz (President of 100RC) “needs to build connections across not just various departments of municipal government, but across an entire ecosystem of people and places.” This is welcomed, since it is both forward looking and holistic in its approach to solving some of the world’s major issues in the next 20 years. Given that most entities are no longer stand-alone enterprises, but part of an increasing global network of customers, suppliers, regulators and other stakeholders, disaster recovery cannot be handled effectively by an individual member of that network. Instead, the entire group needs to collaborate to create an effective disaster recovery program. A central CRO who coordinates the needs of the various parts of the network seems to be the best way.

While we see this forward looking risk management approach to resilience as a welcome development, it does further complicate interaction between resilience and BCP by muddying command and control and introducing the potential for more stakeholders into an already complex chain. What is required for this to work is very clear planning and, one could argue, the ability for external (such as municipal) CROs to assume command of enterprises under his or her jurisdiction.

As of now, in most jurisdictions it is the responsibility of the CEO and the board to determine and define risk capacity and risk appetite. This leaves little room for outsourcing BCP or resilience planning. The key question, then, is whether a change in mindset and approach is required to enable the development of network-wide recovery solutions, thus overcoming the balkanization of BCP.

America’s Safest Driving Cities

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Winter weather has yet to appear in many parts of the country, but it’s on its way. When factoring rainy or snowy conditions into collision frequency, however, some cities are safer than others in many types of weather, according to the 2015 Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report.

driversWhile there are many factors that impact highway safety, an improving economy and lower gas prices have led to an increase in the number of miles being driven.

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According to the Federal Highway Administration’s latest Traffic Volume Trend Report, cumulative travel for 2015 is up by 3.

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5%. The September report is based on hourly traffic count data reported by the states, using data collected at about 4,000 continuous traffic counting locations nationwide.

Recently, the National Safety Council estimated that the U.S. is on track for its deadliest driving year since 2007. In the first six months of 2015, NSC reported traffic deaths were up 14% from a year ago, and serious injuries were 30% higher over the same period.

The city with the best driving report this year is Kansas City, Kansas. Factoring in precipitation, Cape Coral, Fla., and Brownsville, Tex., came in second and third, respectively. Cities at the bottom of the list of 200 were Boston, Massachusetts; Worcester, Massachusetts; and Baltimore, Maryland. New York City was listed at 151.

The report is based on Allstate’s claims data, ranking America’s 200 largest cities in terms of car collision frequency to identify which have the safest drivers. The data also shows how these cities rank when precipitation is a factor. The rankings are based on the expected driver performance given each city’s average annual precipitation as measured by NOAA, according to Allstate.

America’s safest driving cities:

ABD-Infographic-2015-1

Crude Oil Safety Mandates Signed into Law

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A transportation law signed by President Obama earlier this month includes new mandates for freight trains transporting crude oil through the United States. The law requires that tank cars used for transporting crude oil be replaced by March 1, 2018, phasing out older DOT 111 tank cars for shipment of flammable liquids, including most Bakken crude oil, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The new tank cars will have thicker steel shells, insulating materials, full-size metal shields at each end and improved outlet valves underneath the car.

DOT tank car

The DOT said that the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) also outlines a classification and testing program for mined gases and liquids and new operational requirements for high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT) that include braking controls and speed restrictions.

A rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Canada, on July 26, 2013, that killed 42 people brought a heightened focus on the dangers of transporting highly flammable Bakken crude oil by train.

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The Journal News reports that the new law requires freight railroads to provide real-time data on flammable liquids shipments to state emergency response commissions (SERCs) to be shared with local first responders. The law codifies what had been a regulatory emergency order requiring trains containing one million gallons of Bakken crude oil to notify SERCs or other appropriate state-delegated entities about the operation of these trains through their states.

For the first time, the rail safety section of the new transportation law also allows states and localities to obtain inspection reports on privately owned rail bridges filed with the Federal Railroad Administration by freight railroads.

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Localities will be eligible for 80% federal funding to finance safety improvements at dangerous railroad crossings.

According to the DOT, the rule:

  • Requires an enhanced tank car standard and an aggressive, risk-based retrofitting schedule for older tank cars carrying crude oil and ethanol.
  • Requires a new braking standard for certain trains that will offer a higher level of safety by potentially reducing the severity of an accident.
  • Designates new operational protocols for trains transporting large volumes of flammable liquids, such as routing requirements, speed restrictions, and information for local government agencies.
  • Provides new sampling and testing requirements to improve classification of energy products placed into transport.