Crane tip-over.

[Hddnis]

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091116/ARTICLES/911169936/1349?Tit

This happened near my wife's grandmother, a block or so over from what I understand.

There are another dozen or so images if you follow the link to the article. The piece that was too heavy doesn't really look all that big in the picture of it.



Mr. HE

 

[GlennG]

Nice crane. Grove 6350?

 

[Canyonbc]

That is an amazing story, that is 10 minutes from place.

I am working 5 minutes from there tomorrow will have to see the damage.

YIKE!!!

Have not been on arborist site in months either, just happened to go on tonight.

Great Post.

 

[scotvl]

whos at fault the crane operator or the arborist who was cutting the tree and made the load shift?

 

[Hddnis]

...I am working 5 minutes from there tomorrow will have to see the damage...

Have not been on arborist site in months either, just happened to go on tonight...

Something must have been tickling your ears telling you we was talking about your area.

If you learn any more about this incident please share with us.

I probably won't visit down there again for a few months and so my chances of getting any more than what's in the paper is slim.

The picture of that boom just sliced through the house is incredible. I've seen stuff like that before, watched trees do it even, but it never ceases to give me a weird feeling.

(Oh, I didn't cut the trees that went through the houses. Watched it during a windstorm, just in case anyone was wondering.)


Mr. HE

 

[Canyonbc]

Glad to here everyone is ok from it.

Whew...

 

[Rftreeman]

whos at fault the crane operator or the arborist who was cutting the tree and made the load shift?

probably the one that said "ahh it'll handle it"...

or

"hey ya'll, watch this...here hold my beer".........

 

[Canyonbc]

I will let everyone know if I find anything out.

Atlas is a large but well known company in this area.

They were in Arborage or Tree Service Magaizne a couple months back for doing back country electrical clearance and stuff of that nature. There was a write up on them, if anyone remembers that.

I have always heard good things about Rich and Atlas Tree.

I have met Rich once, nice guy.

There work always looks good.

Will let everyone know if I find out anything

 

[Canyonbc]

Something must have been tickling your ears telling you we was talking about your area.

If you learn any more about this incident please share with us.

I probably won't visit down there again for a few months and so my chances of getting any more than what's in the paper is slim.

The picture of that boom just sliced through the house is incredible. I've seen stuff like that before, watched trees do it even, but it never ceases to give me a weird feeling.

(Oh, I didn't cut the trees that went through the houses. Watched it during a windstorm, just in case anyone was wondering.)


Mr. HE

Oh they were...

You head down to Sonoma County???

Where in the PNW are you living?

 

[treevet]

There work always looks good.

Be hard pressed to get HO to go along with that.

 

[deevo]

Wow! That's crazy, are they going to be changing the name to "unreliable crane service"? In all seriousness it's a miracle no one was serious injured or killed in that mishap!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Could the OE see the size of the pick? Sounds like the climber made an error in his weight estimation and cutting style.

If they were extended and low boom, then separation of a too heavy load that was not pretensioned could have done it.

IS this another case of the foreman telling the climber to hurry up, we are almost done?

Would an over cab lift with the front outrigger down have made a difference?

My guess is poor communication between climber and OE on available capacity. If you are boomed down and out, then ALWAYSerr on the side of caution.

Isn't coastal live oak around 70# per cuft? not that that was the species.

 

[Treetom]

Rough calculations

Live oak (green) is 238lbs per 1-foot section @ 24" diameter. The trunk in the video looked at least that. A 16ft long trunk would weigh 3808 lbs. That's a big crane, but once you add the jib and boom all the way out at a low angle, capacity drops dramatically.

 

[tree MDS]

Be hard pressed to get HO to go along with that.

Lol. Good one!

I dont think that tree looked all that "sick" in photo 8 or 9 there, that looked like an amazing old tree to me. I hope those guys know what they are talking about...because they got some questions to answer now, thats for sure.

 

[lego1970]

Man, that's a bad day at work. I'm amazed with all the safe gaurds on the crane that it tipped over. I'm curious as to what caused that. My only guess is that either the outriggers on the back were not properly shored up, or the load started swinging, but that's just a guess. On a positive note, it's always good when you can learn from a mistake where at least nobody gets killed or injured. This way hopefully it can be prevented in the future.

 

[tree MDS]

"The arborist strongly recommended that the aging and sick tree be removed for safety". As it turns out, it looks like the old boy had a little fight left in him yet. lol.

Seriously though: I wanna hear more about what this tree was was "sick" with...in the shot with the climber in the canopy, it looked pretty good to me.

They got alot done by 2:30 though, I gotta say that much, they just shouldn't have gotten greedy (or whatever happened) like that - especially almost done! Too bad. At least nobody got hurt.

 

[NorCalCutters#3]

A few of my climbers used to work there and they ( atlas ) are hacks . They are a white collar get the job done quick and cheep outfit . They are big and get a lot of work . They have 2 crews. one all Mexicans and the other union for highway and commercial jobs . The owner is a tight ass living a a huge house and pays very little to his crew . He is hurting right now and need work so I think his son in-law talked them into removing this tree . We do have a lot of Sudden Oak Death but it looks healthy enough . Hard to tell with out a test or looking at the tree for bleeding . Atlas does a lot of jobs with the crane company so they all knew what they were doing . Maybe the climber did not finish the cut and the operator sucked it up and the load jumped up and then came down on the hook extra heavy . I will as the guys that I think are still there .

 

[NorCalCutters#3]

If you google the address you can see how much room they had in the yard. I see no reason why they wanted the crane at what $4000 extra . The job was $10,000 deducted form the sale of the house . It can happen to any of us . That guy in the tree is one lucky SOB :jawdrop:

 

[Hddnis]

My thinking was maybe SOD since I know that area has been hit. Last time I was down there I remember seeing a few trees that looked like they were killed by it.

I really wish when I traveled down there I time for more than just visiting family; time to look around and visit with guys in the biz.



Mr. HE

 

[lego1970]

Now I see what they doing. I didn't see all the pics at first, so I thought it was kinda wierd that the crane went over when the tree was already down, but now I see the chunks they rigging. I was doing tree work with a friend who has a crane and got into a situation where the cranes override wouldn't let us move it after the cut was made. It was a good size Maple that had busted off onto a roof of a house after a storm. It was in a percurious position and hard to explain without photos. Our guesstimates (which is all they were) was off and after the cut was made safety limiters including the override switch wouldn't let us move it. Lowering the tree chunk down wasn't an option without doing a lot more damage to the house but luckily I was able to walk out on the trunk and safely rig down some other smaller pieces while it was suspended. That allowed enough weight off the piece to stop the override and allow us to lift it over the house.

Another time I was in Arkansas doing some line clearance after a storm and had the bucket truck fully extended off to the side. I was only about 15-20 feet off the ground and all of a sudden as I was trimming, the tree starting growing upwards. I thought in my head this is wierd, then I realized the boom was going down, but luckily not at a real fast pace. When the bucket rested on the ground I thought somehow I must of snagged the lever just right with my clothing or the hydraulic lines from the saw causing the gate to open up and letting the lever to move. I could hear everybody in the background yelling and asking if I was ok (couldn't see real great because I landed in a bunch of brush), and I was yelling back to them that everything is fine so I kept trying to lift the boom but it wasn't going anywhere. Once I turned around to try and figure out what was wrong I could see that the outrigger had slipped off the pad and when into the little ditch along the road. The other outrigger on the other side was off the ground pretty good and I think the tires came off the ground a little to but can't remember. That happened about a couple months after I first started running a bucket truck 10 years ago.

From those two experiences posted above, from doing off road bucket work on steep hills where shoring and leveling is extremely important, and from rigging equipment off of semi-trucks when I'm hauling flatbed, I've learned that there seems to be a lack of quality training and more importantly litature on the subject. It seems like all the crane operators I've come across (and I've worked a lot with them, especially thru trucking) don't ever really seem to know the math or physics behind it. The only thing I've ever learned or told from an operator is that is that once the load is suspended, and done swinging, when possible use the boom hydraulics instead of the winch for lifting because it's suppose to put the center of gravity back towards the crane. When I was doing the off-road bucket work I tried like crazy to find good info over the internet and even from Altec where we rented the truck to find what the capabilities are when a truck is off level. Since we were off road and didn't always have enough shoring timber the truck was sometimes not completely level side to side but I always tried to work on the high side. It always made me nervous as hell to fly it like that with no good training or even manuals that explain everything in depth. I think a little better training and or information would go a long way in crane or ariel boom safety.

Aside from that and more to tree work what I really would like to see and I'll be honest I haven't every really studied is estimating log weight. I'm sure some guys know that stuff, so if any of you have any links to that type of info that would be great. Even if I never work with a crane again it would be nice to know the estimated weights of logs.

Good post.