during the construction of the Empire State Building in New York, assignment help

Part 1 :

In the photo below, taken in 1931 during the construction of the Empire State Building in New York, three iron workers are riveting beams together to create a much lighter and stronger building than previous mortar or prick buildings. The construction techniques were extremely modern and strong: so strong was the Empire State Building that only fourteen years after this photo was taken, a B-25 bomber flew into the same building at approximately the same floor where these workers are. The building withstood the shock of the airplane strike, impressing everybody in New York about the strength of the building.

Look closely at the two photos and compare how safety was done in early industrial America compared to today. Write a brief description about each of these safety hazards. Point out what the hazard is in each photo, and point out how the hazards, old and modern, are controlled, if they are controlled at all. As part of your description, try to answer the following questions:

  1. What was done to protect workers from falls from heights, then and now?
  2. What was done to protect worker’s hands from hot or sharp objects?
  3. What was done to protect the public or workers below when tools are mishandled and maybe dropped from above?
  4. What was done to warn workers about falls from heights or imminent danger?

1931 photo of construction workers building the Empire State Building

Photo of a modern construction worker.

Part 2 :

Your homework is to watch one of two videos and prepare a one page double spaced page to submit to the instructor.

Video 1 is Farmington Mine Disaster Opens in new window/tab., about a 1968 coal mine disaster which killed 78 miners in West Virginia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM6ZhJLJzog.

Disaster Chronicles: Farmington Mine Disaster – A&E (1990)

www.youtube.com

An episode of the early-1990’s A&E Channel series “Disaster Chronicles,” hosted by Joe Witte, focusing on the Farmington, WV Mine explosion and fire in Novem…

Video 2 is Johnstown Flood Opens in new window/tab., another case of mismanagement of risk which resulted in 2,200 fatalities when a dam to the east of Pittsburgh burst in 1889. Use your WVU login credentials to access this video.

Watch either video above and list two possible controls for preventing or mitigating/reducing the severity of coal mine explosions or, in the alternate video, flooding by applying these controls:

  1. Hazard control by elimination
  2. Hazard control by substitution
  3. Hazard control by engineering controls
  4. Hazard Control by administrative controls including training
  5. Hazard control using personal protective equipment

Note: Just as with much of our work in safety, there is no best answer(s) for the homework because people see and react different to risk management based partly on their education and family exposure to risk management.

Part 3 :

write in discussion board

Even before we get into the rules and details about construction safety, we can look over some photos that have obvious rule violations. Write a discussion post addressing all four of these photos, and then comment on two of your classmates’ posts.

Photo 1: A job-built ladder

Photo of a job-built ladder.

Photo credit: G. Winn

This wooden object was made of scrap wood, and was used over two days as a ladder on a residential construction site. It has a single nail holding the diagonal brace and there is no horizontal brace. It has no rungs, and no way to stand on the ladder. Yet, unbelievably, the device was used without incident, not owing to the design, but sheer luck.

What else is wrong with using a device like this on a construction site?

Photo 2: Residential roofing job

Photo of a worker on a partially built roof

Photo credit: G. Winn

This construction worker has been asked to apply roofing material, probably shingles, over this sub-roof of oriented strand board (OSB). Yet the employer was either too cheap to but scaffold to work from, or rent a manlift, or even supply a harness and anchorage so the worker does not get injured if he falls. Why do tyouthink the square hole was cut into the OSB? Hint: probably because the workers in above the length of a typical extension ladder and this is the employer’s idea of “roof access”.

What else do you see that could cause a worker to fall?

Photo 3: Scaffolding safety

People standing on and beside a scaffold.

Photo credit: G. Winn

What you see in this photo is one of the very most frequent violations of construction safety rules: allowing employees to work on the top scaffold level without full guardrails, which would consist of a top rail, a mid rail and a toe board. On the more positive side, the scaffold is fully planked from left to right, and both levels are strengthened by diagonal braces on left and right sides.

Is there anything else you can see wrong with this photo?

Photo 4: Who could actually walk on this?

Photo of an improperly built ladder jack

Photo credit: G. Winn

In this photo, the employer has asked the employee to erect a ladder jack, quite common, in which the left and right vertical sides are elevated about a foot at time by the worker raising the walk board by operating a foot lever. But instead of a “stage” or “pick” to work from, the employee has given the worker a ladder to walk on: tricky and hazardous if not impossible. In addition, the ladder is not equipped with fall protection to keep the worker from tipping over backward even if he or she could walk and work from it.

Is there anything else wrong here?

A ladder jack is supposed to look like this: note the guardrail, midrail and toeboardinstalled properly. The rails still move up and down with the platform.

Graphic showing a properly constructed ladder jack

Image credit: OSHA.gov (https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/scaffolding/supported/).

These hazards are all construction-related and easy to spot. Preventing them in the first place is a lot harder than just spotting them. Preventing them requires rules, enforcement, prgrams and training.