Had to run a 150-tonner for a 16-hour shift last Thursday when the relief guy's truck broke down outside Flagstaff.

Everything was going smooth until the wind picked up around 3 PM. We were setting precast panels on a six-story hotel. The foreman kept pushing to get one more lift in, but I shut it down when my anemometer hit 25 mph. Got some grumbles, but an hour later a gust took a stack of plywood off the deck and slammed it into the fence. Would have been a real mess if we'd been swinging. When do you guys draw the line on wind? Our company policy is vague, just says 'operator discretion'.

2 comments

2 Comments

anna56712d ago

Man, good call shutting it down. That's exactly when things get sketchy. My old boss had a hard 20 mph rule for anything off the ground, no arguments. Saw a guy try to fight a gust with a load of rebar once, and it swung that boom like a fishing pole. Scared me straight. Company policy being "operator discretion" is just them covering their butts so they can blame you if it goes wrong. You were the one up there, you made the right call.

miles58112d ago

Yeah, that "operator discretion" line is total garbage. Reminds me of my buddy who was setting trusses when a storm rolled in faster than forecast. He called it, but the foreman pushed back, saying the wind wasn't that bad yet. My friend held firm and shut the crane down. Twenty minutes later, a microburst hit the site and tore the tarp off the material trailer like it was tissue paper. He said watching that tarp sail away was all the proof he needed. They'd have been picking up splintered wood for a week if he'd listened.