06.06.2008

Three tower cranes shut down

Three tower cranes, two in Seattle and one in Renton Washington state, were designated unsafe and stopped from working by the state Department of Labor and Industries yesterday.

The department claims that the two Seattle cranes had structural and electrical problems, it said in a statement that tower sections from different manufacturers were used in each crane, while the one in Renton just has electrical issues.

"We don't take it lightly shutting down a construction project," said Labor & Industries spokeswoman Elaine Fischer.

All three cranes are made by Yongmao in China and marketed by Lewis Equipment in the USA under the Sun Crane brand. According to the department "their electrical systems don't meet basic code requirements, putting them are at risk of catching fire or causing failures or shocks, which might lead to dropped loads."
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A Sun Crane owned by Lewis Equipment

The department was apparently alerted to the cranes via a notice from California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health. Cal/OSHA which had found problems with another Sun tower crane, according to Fischer.

The state has sent engineers to test the cranes to see if they are structurally safe. It says that it has also opened four investigations into the crane distributor- Lewis equipment - and the contractors.

The general contractors are Lease Crutcher Lewis, with a crane at Fifth Avenue and Yesler Way in Seattle, Turner Construction, with a crane on Terry Ave. in Seattle; and Lydig Construction, with the crane working on the Valley Medical Center in Renton.

Lease Crutcher Lewis was the general contractor at the Bellevue site near Seattle, where a tower crane fell in late 2006, killing a man in his apartment. It was fined $9,200 for that incident which was related to a faulty foundation design.