The contractor operating the scaffold that came apart in high winds triggering Saturday’s deadly accident failed to heed the manufacturer’s specifications that the heavy rig should be lashed to either the base or top of the John Hancock Center in bad weather, city officials said Tuesday.
AMS Architectural Technology Inc. “didn’t meet the requirements of the manufacturer’s specifications,” said Buildings Commissioner Mary Richardson-Lowry. “All indications are that [the scaffold] was not where it should have been when we have severe weather forecasted.”
The scaffold fell and crushed two cars on Chestnut Street, killing three women. Eight other people were injured, one critically.
According to a copy of specifications issued July 24, 2000, by Beeche Systems Inc., the manufacturer of custom-made equipment used at the Hancock, “the platform shall be moored up to the parapet [at the top of the building] … or lowered to the ground when severe weather is forecast.”
The specifications, which were released by the city, did not define severe weather.
The National Weather Service forecast issued at 4 p.m. Friday included a daylong high wind advisory for Saturday, calling for gusts of 45 m.p.h. Winds on Saturday peaked at around 60 m.p.h., the weather service said.
`This is a design issue’
A spokesman for Denver-based AMS disputed the city’s assertions and blamed Beeche. “We believe this is a design issue, not an operational issue,” said Ray Hanania. “We did everything to the letter.”
Hanania said the scaffold was not in use and was docked Saturday at the 42nd floor of the building–a location that dovetails with accounts from witnesses and Shorenstein Co., the skyscraper’s owner.
Officials at Beeche Systems, based in Scotia, N.Y., could not be reached for comment.
Richardson-Lowry said the Law Department is researching what penalties the city could levy for a failure to adhere to the scaffold maker’s specifications.
The city requires scaffold users to adhere to the manufacturer’s specifics and to standards set forth by the American National Standards Institute, city officials said.
A review of ANSI documents showed no specific mention of standards for scaffold operations in windy conditions.
Richardson-Lowry speculated that stowing the scaffold on the ground or at the top of the building, “where there is a locking mechanism as we understand it,” may have taken more time than leaving the rig at a spot in the middle of the skyscraper.
But “beyond the specifications, beyond the codes, beyond the national standards, it was the common sense thing to do,” she asserted. Failure to do so “is just incredible,” she said.
AMS was not required to have a permit to use the scaffolding. Earlier, city officials had said a permit was necessary when scaffolding is used over sidewalks or streets.
But on Tuesday they backtracked, saying a permit is required only for a canopy built over a sidewalk or other public way. Platforms that dangle from building rooftops do not need city approval.
The lack of a permit requirement raises a safety issue, in that the city does not know where scaffolds are being used or under what circumstances.
On Tuesday, Mayor Richard Daley said he is open to amending the code to spell out certain requirements for all users of scaffolding, such as a mandated tie-down at ground level in heavy winds.
Meanwhile, another witness came forward to describe an object falling from the top of the building shortly before the 1:45 p.m. accident.
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Joyce Waskelo of St. Charles said she and her husband were sitting in a cocktail lounge on the 96th floor when they saw what looked to be a metal object 20 to 30 feet long falling outside a window facing west.
“It kind of seemed to fall outward from the building and down,” said Waskelo.
She said the object seemed to have a lattice-like pattern, similar to the arm of a crane. Shortly afterward, Waskelo said, she noticed a pair of cables that had been hanging outside the building were no longer visible.
On Monday, a Minneapolis man told the Tribune he saw a metal object drop in front of a window on the Hancock’s 94th floor observation deck.
The scaffold involved in the accident had been suspended on the west side of the Hancock. A portion of the device landed on cars on Chestnut Street on the south side of the tower.
Another piece of wreckage, described by a city official as an outrigger–a rooftop hoist component–landed near Delaware Place, on the Hancock’s north side. City officials confirmed Tuesday an outrigger is missing from the roof of the building.
Also on Tuesday, Harvey Cameron, the husband of Nanatta Cameron, one of the women killed in the accident, announced he has retained high-profile attorney Johnnie Cochran to represent him.
The Camerons had only been married a year and Nanatta Cameron just gained legal custody of her 2-year-old godchild and was caring for him, her mother Mattie West said.
Cameron had recently left Kraft Foods where she was a senior finance manager to substitute teach for Chicago Public Schools.
Victim had hair appointment
Cameron, the younger of two girls, earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting at the University of Illinois and a master’s in business administration from Northwestern University.
Cameron was downtown for a hair appointment Saturday afternoon, West said. Her mother did not know how she knew the two passengers in her car, Peggy and Michelle Whittaker, who both survived.
Tom Marszewski, a Cochran associate, said that services for Cameron would be held at 9 a.m. Saturday at Holy Angels Church on Oakwood Boulevard.
Visitation for two other victims, Melissa Cook and Jill Nelson, is 2 to 8 p.m. Friday at Burns Funeral Home and Crematory, 10101 Broadway, Crown Point, Ind., according to the answering service for Savich-Semplinski funeral directors in Crown Point. Funeral services are being arranged.