Despite being under the media spotlight, US demolition continues down unsafe path.
I vividly recall an airline spokesman being interviewed on TV in the immediate aftermath of the 911 terrorist attacks, attempting to assuage the fears of a watching world by insisting that – with heightened airport security and unprecedented passenger vigilance – there had probably never been a safer time to fly.
Whether that was based on any scientific fact, PR spin or plain old wishful thinking, I never did find out. But, although it may have been based on some weird and skewed logic, it seemed to work.
I am reminded of this today not least because it is the 12th anniversary of the most tragic, devastating and horribly memorable day of my life but also because it seems to go against the experience of the US demolition industry right now.
It is just over three months since a building under demolition in Philadelphia collapsed and killed six innocent people. That in itself was bad enough, but investigations that followed were to make things worse. They revealed a lack of site inspections and, apparently, a blind eye being turned to the use of recreational drugs on the work site.
For all the global demolition industry’s pursuit of a Zero Harm policy, the sector found itself back under the microscope for all the wrong reasons. Using the 911 analogy, this should have been a time when safety was at the forefront of the industry’s combined mind; a time when double-checks should have been replaced by triple-checks. Demolition SHOULD never have been safer.
Then came the botched PG&E blast that injured several bystanders and which leaves one man still unsure today if he will have legs when the multiple surgeries have subsided.
And now, in this past week, it has been my unenviable task to report on three separate site fatalities in as many days. It is clear that the 911 “scrutiny equals safety” rule does not apply in demolition circles.
Some might argue that the US demolition industry is huge; that varying states, counties and cities have their own safety standards; and that communicating a consistent safety message across multiple states, time zones and languages is difficult. But such arguments are merely a smokescreen used to cover the industry’s failure to address the fact that it is killing people.
When the dust settled after 911, the US had a shared enemy upon which to project its sadness, bitterness and outrage at the 2,977 lives lost on that terrible day. How will America respond to the current spate of demolition deaths when the enemy is within?
