Angie Steele was only 10 years old when one of the worst construction accidents in United States history wiped out 13 of the men in her family, one of them being her father. Over 50 people died when one of the cooling towers being constructed at the Pleasants Power Station on Willow Island, West Virginia started to collapse, bringing the tower and the scaffolding down to a pile of rubble. The first tower had already been put up without any issues, but as they were hoisting up a bucket of concrete 160ft up tower #2, disaster struck. The towers were being constructed by a well known contractor out of New Jersey and the system that had been used to put the towers up had already been used to successfully make 35 other towers. Despite that Van Vlack, a plant electrician, later told a state panel that he worried about the system from the start. Tower number 2 had gotten up to about 160’ when things started going wrong. The accident took place on April 27, 1978 and is thought to be one of, if not the, most deadly construction accidents in U.S history. It’s also an interesting case because it was settled for only $85,500 after $108,300 in fines were proposed( about $1,700 per worker killed), which would most assuredly not serve as a deterrent to future accidents. OSHA also referred to case to the U.S Department of Justice for criminal investigation, and a grand jury was convened but they filed no charges.
    Just after 10:00am on April 27, 1978, as a bucket of concrete was being raised to the top of the tower, the cable hoisting the bucket went slack, and the crane pulling the bucket fell towards the inside of the tower. As the concrete began to topple inwards from the top of the tower, everything from the concrete, to the metal scaffolding fell into the empty center of the tower, causing all fifty one workers who were on the scaffolding at the time of the accident to fall to their deaths. Following the collapse, other construction workers on site immediately began digging for their coworkers as they waited for the fire department and ambulances. A large number of workers who died in the accident were only be able to be identified by the contents of their pockets. I assume the workers fell initially very far and probably died, but even if they survived that they were probably then crushed by tons and tons of concrete and debris falling onto their bodies, or suffocated in the wreckage from lack of oxygen and dust filling their lungs. Unfortunately there also wasn’t much time from when it became clear the accident was happening to when it was too late to do anything about it, so none of the workers really had a chance to survive.
    It was determined that there were several lapses in the job safety that caused or lead to the collapse. These lapses, in no particular order, are that the scaffold attached to the concrete hadn’t time to sufficiently cure, There were missing bolts, and the existing bolts were not of sufficient grade, there was only one access ladder, the concrete hoisting system underwent modifications without proper engineering review, and the job was being rushed which contributed to these lapses. To be more specific, based on the results from onsite inspections, it was concluded that the most likely cause of the collapse was due to the “imposition of construction loads on the shell before the concrete of lift 28 had gained adequate strength to support these loads” It is said that the calculated stress resultants at several points exceeded the strength of the concrete shell and caused the collapse, but I also read that it was just an unfortunate combination of things, and that if either just  the concrete had been given sufficient time to harden, or everything was properly bolted, the accident could have been prevented.
