safety

KN, p. 294 “Death by Construction”

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It’s taken a full year to find a builder that specializes in decks, could fit us into his schedule, and then actually show up to give us an estimate.


We found this guy through an accidental meeting. Months of calling builders listed in the various go-to ‘find your trusted builder here’ sites, following up on referrals from friends, crossing off names of companies that had provided less than satisfactory service (I wondered what was buried beneath one of those lumpy looking new decks in photos of work shared on the internet). We talked about somehow doing it ourselves, knowing that it would take all the weekends into the next millennium.


We were driving through a mall parking lot when we saw a large black van pull up to the curb near us. On the side, in large white letters, said DECKS. I slammed on the brakes, turned the car around, and pulled up next to the van. I jumped out of the car and practically tackled the guy as he got out.


He was startled, but after listening to our tale of woe, gave me his card and told me to call him. I made that call early the next day. He arrived at the house a few days later to assess the damage and discuss what he could do. The deck gods were kind and had delivered a nice young man, experienced in the ways of all things deck. He showed us photos of other jobs, and emailed an estimate. Sticker shock. Almost double what had been the norm just three years before. But we needed the deck replaced. A confluence of events during the Pandemic had created a rotting deck with normal maintenance impossible, and we were desperate.


In prep for the arrival of his crew some two months later, we needed to remove shrubs and bushes that surrounded the deck and ramp leading up to it. Digging next to a structure for days in a row let me get a close look at the underlying structure that would be replaced. Total tear-down was necessary. Previous repairs had left the support system in place, but that would not be possible now. Everything had to go, beams, railings, everything. One of the bushes had grown to fifteen feet tall and has to be cut back each year to allow access to the ramp. It’s a haven for birds all year round, but is loaded with inch long thorns that will rip your skin to shreds if you get too close. While I couldn’t move it, I could certainly cut it back to make a safer work site. Cut it back, cover the remaining six feet tall multiple trunks, with a tarp. There was no need to have bloody workers.


But, you know me. I began to think of other safety concerns. I looked up the stats at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NOISH) and saw that in 2019 there were 11 million construction workers on the official books of licensed contractors. Who knows how many unofficial ones there are? I was stunned at how many fatalities there are on the job with licensed contractors and fully permitted sites.    


Reasons for the 991 recorded deaths on the job in 2019:

  • Falls to a lower level were the leading cause of work-related deaths in construction (401, or 36.4% of the total that year)
  • Struck-by incidents (170 or 15.4% of the total)
  • Electrocutions (79 or 7.2% of the total)
  • Caught-in/between incidents (59 or 5.4% of the total)


A concerning bit of information: “Small employers with fewer than 20 employees accounted for 75% of fatal falls between 2015 and 2017, even though they made up only 39% of construction payroll employment.” * More recent numbers were not available at this writing.


Our deck was only two feet off the ground, so nobody was worried about injuries due to falls. During construction, nobody was struck by anything, or electrocuted, or caught between deck boards. The only danger our work crew faced was dehydration from the heat, and we provided them with a cooler full of ice and water, and chairs to sit in the shady area of the backyard.


But not everyone works at a site that protected. A family friend died a number of years ago in a fall ten feet from the ground. He became a construction worker after September 11th, a casualty of Wall Street downsizing. He found a job with a private contractor and for the most part, found the work satisfying and safe. He did express concern to his co-workers and friends about the safety protocols in place at the job site where he died, but tragically, was ignored.


The guys that redid our roof wore safety harnesses while nailing down the new shingles or delivering materials to the other workers. There are nail guns involved in any modern day construction, but any workers that show up at our house handle their tools responsibly.


*The Kerrians are fictional characters, but the friend mentioned in this post did pass away in 2002, from a fall on the job. His neck snapped when he hit the ground and he died instantly.

*Stats from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

 

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KN, p. 278 “Hurricane Season Opened June 1st”

Hurricane Michael 2018

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Hurricanes do BILLIONS of dollars in property and business damage every year. Wind and rain slam the coastal regions of the planet with a ferocity that man-made structures can’t survive. 

A hurricane is a tropical storm with winds above 74 miles per hour. Called typhoons and cyclones in other regions of the world, there’s no doubt that the challenge of living through ‘the big one’ should scare us all into taking precautions. And with good reason.

Even at level 1, the least powerful of hurricane categories, winds of up to 95mph can knock people off their feet, disintegrate roofs, and send debris flying through the air. Remember Katrina and the personal and economic devastation it inflicted in 2005? That was an over two hundred mile wide, level 5 storm, with shrieking winds up to 175mph, the most costly hurricane the U.S. has experienced. And it’s not even the largest hurricane on record. Windows blown out, buildings collapsed, vast low-lying areas underwater for weeks, many uninhabitable neighborhoods in the aftermath – that is the norm for such an enormous weather event.

Government agencies can help with re-establishing communications, getting water and clothing to the victims, and assisting with rescue efforts, but this can take weeks if roads are impassable or if manpower is limited. Enter volunteer groups – essential to any recovery and rebuilding process. Unfortunately, it can take months – sometimes years – before decent housing can be built for everyone who needs it. Even if homeowners can foot the bills for repairs, a shortage of skilled construction people and supply chain issues with construction materials themselves, puts a huge hold on any recovery efforts.

A friend of ours lived on other people’s couches for three years after Superstorm Sandy while battling insurance companies and waiting for builders to arrive.

The debris at the curb is a partial pile of former studs, cabinets, and flooring removed from inside the shell that remained standing. A six foot wall of sea water had surged down the street from the beach 1/4 mile away and poured through every access point in every house in its path.

The boardwalk that had been on that beach? Torn up by the force of the wind and water thrashing it, sand dunes fill the place where boards used to be.

 

More than one storm has left thousands of people homeless. Masses of people trudge toward refugee tent cities, in search of a safe place to sleep and eat. Power is gone after the big storms. Forget about food and fresh water. Superstorm Sandy occurred in late October when the temperature drops to forty degrees at night in the northeastern USA. There was no heat/power for weeks in some neighborhoods while power companies tried to get the grid back online. Many people had to rely on the kindness of complete strangers for bare necessities.

For the vacation destinations that depend almost exclusively on tourist dollars to support existing roads and housing, and count on food crops to feed the residents, storms can create a level of chaos and devastation that is difficult to come back from. After two major hurricanes within three years, an acquaintance abandoned his house in the Caribbean and left, never to return. Government officials told him the infrastructure in his section would take years to restore.

How can you prepare for hurricanes?
Hurricanes are not just a coastal problem. Pouring rain, high winds, and tornadoes occur hundreds of miles inland from where a hurricane or tropical storm makes landfall. My Carolina cousin’s house is over 200 miles from the coast, but during Michael lost the roof and more. Plus, all the grass and topsoil surrounding the house washed away in the torrents of water flooding the streets. Gardens, trees, shrubs, flowers? Mostly gone, as also happened to farmers providing food for the area. Michael was a mere Class 2 hurricane when it reached that section of the State.

Make a Plan
Make sure everyone in your household knows and understands your hurricane plan, including work, child care, pets, food, water, evacuation, and changes to the daily routine.

Are you in an Evacuation Zone?
You may have to evacuate quickly if you live in an evacuation zone. Learn your evacuation routes and practice with your family and pets well before an actual storm hits. Investigate where you will stay if you can’t return home for a week or more. Follow the instructions from local emergency managers. They don’t make recommendations lightly.

Review Important Documents
Make sure your insurance policies and personal documents (such as ID) are current. Put copies in a safe deposit box at the bank or other secure location. A friend who lost everything in a fire had no backup documents. It took over six months to prove she was who she said she was in order to file claims, because there were thousands in the same situation and the system was overloaded.

Get your home ready
Clean the gutters, stow the outside furniture, hang hurricane shutters if you have them, or board up the windows.

Get your tech ready
Keep your cell phone charged when you know a hurricane is on its way. Consider buying backup charging devices for your electronics – you may need to use your laptop while the storm is passing, if wi-fi is working.

Help your neighbors
Help senior adults, or anyone else who may need assistance to get ready for the storm.

Supplies
Have enough supplies for your household, including food, water, medication, disinfectants, masks, pet supplies, etc. in your go bag or car trunk. After a hurricane, you may not have access to these supplies for days or even weeks.

Experience has shown that since we cannot change nature, the best plan is to get out of the way until storms move on or dissolve. If we evacuate before they hit, at least lives can be saved, if not property.

Whatever the type, natural disasters are overwhelming to the communities struck by them. Contact your church to see if it is doing a clothing/food/water collection and donate whatever you can. Ask if the church is sending a reconstruction team to one of the affected towns. Contact your local branch of Habitat for Humanity and ask what you can do to help as a part of their Disaster Relief Program.

For more information about preparedness in your region, check out your town’s website or call the city manager’s office to see if pamphlets or a what-to-do list are available. If that doesn’t exist, follow the local TV station’s coverage of approaching storms. If it’s a big one coming, there are usually shelters set up ahead of time and locations are mentioned on the air.

Stay safe and help keep the body count down. You can’t outrace these monster storms.

 

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KN, p. 273 “On the Road: Traveling During the Pandemic”

A family member needed lots of help after surgery and since we had a couple of weeks of Covid down time, we volunteered to pitch in. The tricky part was that she lived in western Pennsylvania, and a last minute obligation meant that we had to stay overnight on the drive out there.

 

Overnight. On the road. During the Pandemic, when some restaurants would be closed and protocols would be different from previous trips for every single public rest stop.

 

We couldn’t merely toss clothes in the suitcases and hop in the car; we had to plan for all kinds of contingencies. Normally, we carry a handy AAA travel guide for the States in which we will travel. It lists hotels and restaurants by town, so when we’re ready to stop, we call from the road to make reservations for dining or hotels. This time, we had to call before we left the house since Sheila needs a walk-in shower and a place with an elevator. No tubs or stairs for us right now, and those requirements limited our hotel choices.

 

We discovered from the phone calls that breakfast was going to be problematic at the hotels. Breakfast buffets were a no-no. We could pick up go-bags at the front desk that contained a bagel and boiled eggs which was good for some happy travelers, but not for us. We elected to eat at a Denny’s we knew to be near our chosen hotel, in order to get hot food.

 

Restaurants all along the route required masks. Once we entered, we saw that every table had more space than usual between it and the next, and sometimes, empty tables had signs that said: ‘not available.’ In one place, the manager placed empty mop buckets on the ‘forbidden’ spots. Yup, a definite deterrent. We did need to use our surface wipes on the restaurant tables in two of the places, since the waitstaff missed quite a bit. BUT, the extra space was in some ways relaxing – less noise and no crowds are a plus.

 

The take-out places had decals on the floor that marked where you could stand to give your order and pick up your food. Not everyone followed the rules, but most complied.

 

The highway rest stops were cleaner and more organized than we had ever seen them. Areas in front of map displays were cordoned off and ‘no browsing’ was enforced. We told the staff members which maps we needed and they handed them to us. The vending machine operation seemed to be the same as always.

 

The hotels had contactless check-ins and checkouts, but a surprising touch at one was the seal on some doors to the rooms. The seals meant that the room had been sanitized after the last guest. The seal was broken only by using the key to gain access. Another plus? The hotel lobbies and rooms were cleaner than we’d ever seen them before. Not a smudge, dust bunny, or stray fingerprint anywhere. The hotel pools were open, but could only be used if reserved ahead of time; one family/group at a time.

 

These were our essential travel supplies that before the Pandemic would have been unnecessary:

 

  • Handi-wipes
  • Masks
  • Medical gloves
  • Surface wipes

 

We have returned, with mission accomplished, and have been tested as Covid-free, but we didn’t take sanitation for granted anywhere.

 

For other “On-the-Road” travel tips, check out:

 

Stay safe out there and have a great time!

 

 

KN, p. 273 “On the Road: Traveling During the Pandemic” Read More »