1978 — Apr 27, Scaffold Collapse, Monongahela Power Co., Willow Island, WV — 51

— 51 Burkhammer. “Willow Island: A Personal Reflection.” Charleston Gazette, Apr 27, 2008.
— 51 Carper and Feld. Construction Failure. 1997, p. 8.
— 51 Levy and Salvadori. Why Buildings Fall Down. 1987, p. 174.
— 51 Nat. Bur. of Standards. Investigation of Construction Failure…Willow Island…, 1979, 1.
— 51 Stulberg, Robert B. A Citizens Investigation of The Willow Island Scaffold Disaster. 1978.
— 51 Tuckwiller. “Start Praying That Our Dad’s Alive. Willow Island: Revisited, 27 Apr 2008.
— 51 Ward. “It was Gone: String of Problems Led to 51 Deaths at Willow Island.” 27Apr2008.
— 51 West Virginia Division of Culture and History, “April 27, 1978: Willow Island Disaster”
— 51 WV Governor’s Commission on Willow Island. Report to the Governor…. 1980, p. 1.

Narrative Information

Carper and Feld: “Cooling Tower Scaffold Collapse, Willow Island, West Virginia, April 1978. Premature loading of cast-in-place concrete resulted in loss of life for 51 construction workers, the most costly construction accident since the first collapse of the Quebec bridge over the St. Lawrence River in 1907. (The Quebec failure killed 74 people.)” (Carper and Feld. Construction Failure. 1997, p. 8.)

NBS: “Two natural-draft hyperbolic concrete cooling towers were being constructed at the Pleasants Power Station which is located on the Ohio River at Willow Island, West Virginia…. Shortly after 10 a.m. on April 27, 1978, the top portion of the second unit which had reached a height of 166 ft (51 m) collapsed during construction…. A four-level scaffolding system which was anchored to the collapsed portion of the shell fell with it killing all 51 workers who were on the scaffold.” (National Bureau of Standards. 1979, 1)

WV Gov: “On the morning on April 27, 1978, scaffolding collapsed at a Monongahela Power Company station at Willow Island, northeast of Parkersburg. The scaffolding was being used to pour concrete for a cooling tower that was under construction. Forty-five workers fell more than 150 feet to their deaths and six more were crushed to death on the ground, ranking Willow Island among West Virginia’s worst construction disasters.

“The disaster became a national story. But the rush to report it alienated members of the grieving community, and an investigation begun almost immediately by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) didn’t please them either. ‘The families have been held at arm’s length and have been ignored. Being the biggest losers, we feel it should have been the other way around’.”

“An investigation of the New Jersey construction company which built the cooling tower revealed that the poured cement had not set properly, enabling the scaffolding to tear loose. At the time of the accident there were only 20 federal OSHA inspectors in West Virginia. The AFL-CIO and other agencies in the state responded by pushing to increase the number of inspectors in the state to avert future disasters.” (WV Div Culture/History, 27Apr978: Willow Island Disaster)

Ward: “At about 10 a.m. on April 27, 1978, workers began raising the day’s second bucket of concrete up 166 feet to Lift 29. Each day, they poured another 5-foot lift to build the second of two 430-foot cooling towers for the new Pleasants Power Station at Willow Island.

“But on that Thursday morning, 30 years ago today, something went terribly wrong. The cable hoisting that bucket of concrete went slack. The crane that was pulling it up fell toward the inside of the tower. Scaffolding followed. The previous day’s concrete, Lift 28, started to collapse. Concrete began to unwrap off the top of the tower. First it peeled counter-clockwise, and then in both directions. A mess of concrete, wooden forms and metal scaffolding crumbled to the ground.

“Fifty-one construction workers were on the scaffold at the time. They all plunged to their deaths. “I looked up at the top of the tower, and it was gone – the scaffolding was gone,” William Van Vlack Jr., who was working on the ground at the time, later told investigators.

“Thirty years later, the Willow Island disaster is still considered the worst construction accident in U.S. history. Like most disasters, it’s still hard to point to one specific triggering event. Instead, a mix of safety lapses combined to bring the tower crashing down. Concrete in the previous day’s lift hadn’t hardened enough to hold the scaffolding. Key bolts meant to attach the scaffolding to the tower were missing. An elaborate concrete hoisting system was modified without proper engineering review. Contractors were rushing to speed construction, perhaps overlooking important safety measures along the way. “There were redundant features here that, if they had corrected them, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Stan Elliott, who was then and is now the area director for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “If they had put the bolts in, it probably wouldn’t have happened,” Elliott said earlier this month. “If they had let the concrete cure, it probably wouldn’t have happened. “But when you put all of these things together all on the same day at the same time, this is what happened.” ‘A matter of luck’

“Up and down the Ohio Valley in the 1970s, power plants were rising up. Coal was taking over as a major source of electricity across the country. New coal-fired units were being built from Mason County to Moundsville. Located just south of St. Marys, the Willow Island plant was being built by Allegheny Power System, now called Allegheny Energy, for its Monongahela Power unit. There were already two smaller units at the site, built in 1949 and 1959. The new, $677 million plant would include two units and a total of 1,300-megawatts of capacity.

“By April 1978, workers had finished one and were building a second “natural draft” cooling tower. These are like huge chimneys, which create an updraft of air that cools the water as it falls down the inside of the tower. For most people, these hourglass-shaped concrete cooling towers probably bring back bad memories of the March 1979 Three-Mile Island nuclear plant accident. But cooling towers are crucial parts of coal-fired power stations as well. In power plants, electricity is generated when steam drives a turbine. This steam must be condensed before it can be returned to the boiler to continue the cycle of steam and electricity generation. This condensation happens in a heat exchanger. Cooling water is needed in the heat exchanger and it is this cooling water that is cycled through the cooling tower. In this way, the water from the boilers and steam turbines are kept separate from the cooling water. Impurities are kept out of the turbines.

“One of Willow Island’s contractors, New Jersey-based Research-Cottrell, had already built 35 cooling towers at plants around the country. Research-Cottrell used a patented system, with an elaborate, four-level system of scaffolding that circled the tower as it was built. The scaffolding was secured to the inside and outside of the tower. Hydraulic jacks lifted the scaffold as work on the tower progressed. A system of cranes spread around the top of the scaffolding hoisted buckets of concrete up. Workers were to pour one 5-foot lift per day.

“After the disaster, a Research-Cottrell lawyer told a congressional committee that the system previously had a flawless record. “There has been no death and there has been no serious injury related to this complex system of construction,” company lawyer Willis O. Shay said. But Van Vlack, a plant electrician, later told a state panel that he worried about the system from the start. “I consider that an extremely dangerous procedure – the fact that they have managed to build many, many cooling towers with that particular procedure before – I would consider more a matter of luck than anything else,” Van Vlack said.

“Wet concrete and wrong angles. After the collapse, OSHA called in the National Engineering Laboratory, part of the Commerce Department, to help figure out what happened. Engineers studied the scaffolding setup, examined concrete curing times, and calculated the loads created by lifting the buckets up the tower. In a 188-page report, they concluded that “the most probable cause” of the collapse was “the imposition of construction loads … before the concrete of Lift 28 had gained adequate strength to support these loads.” Translation? The concrete wasn’t given time to dry.

“But OSHA’s Elliott recalls that the causes were more complicated than that. For one thing, the entire scaffolding and crane system was based on elaborate geometry. Each crane had to be located at a certain spot at the top of the tower, and each bucket loaded and hoisted from another certain spot on the ground. If everything was placed just right, the angles lined up to give the system enough strength. If the angles were off, the strength just wasn’t there.

“Elliott said OSHA discovered that, to cut corners on construction time, management and workers were loading concrete from different spots. The angles were wrong, weakening the entire system. “The concept was wonderful, but the implementation left something to be desired,” Elliott said.

“On June 8, 1978, OSHA cited Willow Island contractors for 10 willful and 10 serious violations. Among other things, the violations cited the failure to field test concrete and properly anchor the scaffold system. OSHA proposed $108,300 in fines. The cases settled for $85,500, or about $1,700 per worker killed in the disaster. Joe Powell, then-president of the West Virginia AFL-CIO, called the amount “a small pittance of a fine.” “Judged as a percentage against profits, such fines would not constitute a tenth of a percent and most assuredly would not serve as a deterrent to future accidents,” Powell told a congressional hearing convened in St. Marys.

“OSHA referred the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. A grand jury was convened, but no charges were ever filed. Meanwhile, Willow Island’s general contractor, United Engineers and Constructors Inc., hired a consultant to perform its own study. The consultant, Lev Zetlin Associates, said that OSHA and the Bureau of Standards were wrong to blame improperly cured concrete. “Key evidence,” the consultant said, “suggested that the problems originated due to lack of understanding of the scaffold system by the workers, and also due to its systematic misuse. Lack of technical and management supervision was also an underlying cause to this collapse.”

“Within days of the collapse, a young lawyer working for one of Ralph Nader’s crusading groups was poring over OSHA records about Willow Island. Robert B. Stulberg of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group found what he called “substantial evidence” that OSHA knew nearly a year before the disaster that the scaffold used at Willow Island “posed serious hazards to workers.” In March 1977, an OSHA inspector who visited the site found no evidence that the same scaffolding – then being used to finish the first cooling tower – would hold the intended load. The inspector also warned that the company’s use of only one temporary stair-tower could be hazardous if workers needed an emergency exit from the scaffolding.

“A second inspection that same month found the scaffolding “was badly in need of repairs.” Some of these repairs, it cautioned, “were made without knowledge of the engineering department.” The inspector warned of possible “disastrous consequences.”

“Eula Bingham, assistant labor secretary for OSHA, responded that the Nader report was “untrue and actually misleading and has caused unnecessary anguish for members of this community by diverting attention from the true cause of the collapse.” Lawmakers greeted the Nader report with equal disdain. They grilled Stulberg in a hearing about his qualifications to perform such a study. Then-Rep. Robert Mollohan, a Democrat whose district included Willow Island, told reporters that Stulberg’s hearing testimony was “patently ridiculous.” “Any flannel-mouth can get up here and make a charge,” Mollohan said.

“’Last bastion of hope’ Not long after the collapse, then-state Labor Commissioner Steve Cook flew up the highway with a State Police trooper, headed for Willow Island. He needed to meet then-Gov. Jay Rockefeller to tour the site. “I remember the trip, because we were going 115 miles per hour,” Cook recalled. But it would be six months before the state took any steps to investigate the disaster. Rockefeller was under pressure to do so. His Republican rival, Arch Moore, was giving speeches about Willow Island. So was A. James Manchin.

“In early October 1978, Rockefeller announced the creation of the Governor’s Commission on Willow Island. The group included labor and business representatives, and state lawmakers. R.W. Bowser, who lost a son at Willow Island and was head of a victims’ support group, called Rockefeller’s commission “perhaps the last bastion of hope for truth and justice – even-handed justice – to prevail at the disaster site.”

“Rockefeller instructed the commission to “conduct a comprehensive and detailed investigation into the collapse, evaluate the facts and circumstances surrounding the collapse and determine, if possible, the cause or causes.” But much of the commission’s 49-page report, released in December 1980, is spent criticizing OSHA. Commission members were furious that OSHA officials would not answer their questions, citing the federal criminal probe. They were especially upset that OSHA would not inspect all other cooling tower projects, and assure the public no repeats of Willow Island would ever happen. “What they appear to be saying is, ‘Don’t bother us until someone is killed or injured,'” Cook said of OSHA during an April 1979 press conference in Wheeling.

“The commission report did discuss one option for West Virginia officials unhappy with OSHA’s performance: Create their own state workplace safety program. State inspectors would enforce federal safety standards, just as they currently do strip mining rules or water quality protections.
Commissioners declined to specifically recommend that course, though. Instead, they cautioned, “There are a great many considerations which should be given careful thought and research before any action is taken.”

“In the 27 years since, there has been little, if any, talk of West Virginia forming its own workplace safety agency.

“After the Sago Mine disaster in January 2006, Gov. Joe Manchin said he wanted to make all West Virginia workers, not just coal miners, the safest in the nation. “While we have certainly focused on improving mine safety, this year has also taught me that we can’t, and shouldn’t, take the safety of any of our West Virginia workplaces for granted,” Manchin said during his 2007 State of the State address. Manchin has not announced any specific steps to improve workplace safety for industries other than coal. And West Virginia remains one of 26 states without a public employee OSHA program.

“Warnings ignored…. “Many workers have been injured or killed in wall collapses,” OSHA said later. “[But] these accidents had not received the publicity or public attention that the structure collapse received, probably because workers are killed one at a time rather than in large numbers at one time.” OSHA did not begin to toughen its rules for concrete and masonry construction until after Willow Island.

“Today [2008], loads cannot be placed on partially constructed structures unless someone trained in structural design has certified them as able to handle those loads. New rules also mandated on-site inspections of forms and shoring to ensure they matched blueprints. Concrete must be tested before forms and shoring are removed. “It’s more specific and it’s also more rigorous,” said Noah Connell, acting director of OSHA’s directorate of construction….” (Ward 2008)

Tuckwiller: “For a few days, the people of tiny Willow Island – and especially the “Men of Steele,” as one reporter dubbed them – were the center of America’s attention. But then the reporters left, and the power plant workers went back to work, and today most people have never heard of Willow Island.” (Tuckwiller. “Start Praying That Our Dad’s Alive,” April 27, 2008.)

Burkhammer: “I hesitate to bring up this terrible day to survivors, but I need to bear witness to the accident that otherwise might get lost in history. A combination of serious safety violations was found to have caused the disaster. Those workers gave their lives over unsafe working conditions. For their sakes and the workers now – the people who still work on dangerous jobs – the rest of us must remember.” (Burkhammer. “Willow Island…” Charleston Gazette, 4-27-2008.)

US GAO: “After NDS had completed its investigation to determine the technical cause of the collapse during construction of a Willow Island, West Virginia, cooling tower, OSHA had NBS expand on its technical investigation by reviewing OSHA’s existing safety and health regulations for general concrete construction and develop guidelines for OSHA’s use for safety evaluation of reinforced concrete cooling tower construction. The introduction to the NBS report stated that the construction of cooling towers and mother reinforced concrete structures in which the partially completed structure plays a key role in supporting construction workers and other construction loads, presents special challenges to providing a safe working environment.” (US GAO, 1982, 13)

Sources

Burkhammer. “Willow Island: A Personal Reflection.” Charleston Gazette, 4-27-2008.

Carper, Kenneth L. and Jacob Feld. Construction Failure. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997. Partially digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=-jnlb-oJxcEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=true

Levy, Matthys, and Mario Salvadori. Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987.

National Bureau of Standards (H.S. Lew, S. G. Fattal, J. R. Shaver, T. A. Reinhold and B. J. Hunt). Investigation of Construction Failure of Reinforced Concrete Cooling Tower At Willow Island, West Virginia (Part 1, NBSIR 78-1578). Washington, DC: Center for Building Technology, National Engineering Laboratory, NBS, November 1979, 42 pages (w/o appendices). At: http://wvgazette.com/static/willowdocs/OSHAReportPart1.pdf

Stulberg, Robert B. A Citizens Investigation of The Willow Island Scaffold Disaster. Washington, DC: Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, May 10, 1978. Accessed at: http://wvgazette.com/static/willowdocs/citizensreport.pdf

Tuckwiller, Tara. “Start Praying That Our Dad’s Alive. Willow Island: Revisited.” Charleston Gazette (WV), 27 Apr 2008. At: http://wvgazette.com/News/WillowIsland/200804250423

United States Government Accountability Office. Transportation: Further Examination of the East Chicago, Indiana, Highway Ramp Collapse Could Help Prevent Similar Accidents (CED-82-120). Washington: GAO 9-2-1982, p. 13. Accessed at: http://gao.gov/assets/140/138719.pdf

Ward, Ken Jr. “It was Gone: String of Problems Led to 51 Deaths at Willow Island.” WVGazette.com, 4-27-2008. Accessed at: http://wvgazette.com:80/News/WillowIsland/200804250422

West Virginia Division of Culture and History. Time Trail, West Virginia. “April 27, 1978: Willow Island Disaster.” At: http://www.wvculture.org/history/timetrl/ttapr.html#0407

West Virginia Governor’s Commission on Willow Island. Report to the Governor and the Legislature. Charleston, WV: The Commission, 1980. Accessed at: http://openlibrary.org/b/OL3143964M/Report-to-the-Governor-and-the-Legislature