Aftermath of an industrial accident Pt2
This is the second page about that industrial accident.
I was coming there over a course of a month to take pictures, as the disaster recovery team was working on it.
There was plenty of stuff to clear inside, so much so that the recovery team was able to move the forklift truck out of the way and to the outside only at the end of October, about two weeks after the explosion.
The picture below was taken on the third week.
As we can see, the temporary makeshift cover was removed from the doors and replaced with a more durable sliding veneer cover. One dumpster had been hauled away and a mobile air heating unit had been brought over. It was already getting quite cold.
When taking pictures of that building, I was positioning my camera in such a way that the top edge of the view frame would be along the roof line, to allow a better view of the broken bricks there.
But, of course, with this way of camera positioning, the buildings on the photo image end up at an angle, depending from which side I was taking any particular picture.
And even though this makes pictures look somewhat odd, especially if two are side by side, with the buildings on them are "at different angles", I believe this way the roof line is visible in greater detail.
For the first two weeks after the explosion, the premises were guarded around the clock. At any given time there was a car with engine running and a man in a uniform of a security company in it.
Not sure, though, what kind of arrangements have been made regarding the access to a restroom during the night.
After a veneer door cover has been installed, I no longer saw a security company vehicle, when I was coming over for my "photo session" at about quarter after seven in the morning.
It was ideal time for me, since the sun had already risen, but the disaster recovery team has not yet arrived.
Not that I was concerned in any way that they would bother me, but just reflecting my approach to always try to do things with minimum expenditure of effort and external exposure.
A couple times, when I was coming over during the day to take pictures, I did talk to the people who were working there, as well as to the security guard, just to discharge the atmosphere.
My "official story" was that I work for a company nearby which also has a propane-powered forklift truck and that we are now very concerned about the possible implications of it.
I told them that when the property owner came over, he only asked the garbage be cleaned from along the fence at the rear of the building, but did not ask anything about propane tanks and where they are stored.
That story also helped me to obtain another version of the likely causes for that explosion.
I did not ask them to let me see the inside of the building, that, of course, would be futile, as everybody was wearing hard hats on the inside of the fence.
This picture was taken in the middle of November, the weather was already quite cold.
Apparently they decided to limit the heating to the unit to the right.
The pictures above and below were taken in late January 2008
It looks differently as on Jan 16, when I came there to have a look. (The camera battery was dead, and so I missed a shot).
At that time the entire top of the building was covered with several layers of plastic. There was so much of it, you could really get an impression that at least a square mile of it was used!
On the picture above, the rear wall is being replaced
The brick work at the front is pretty much finished on the picture below.
New bricks can also be seen at the very top. That layer of bricks was crushed after the explosion. The inner walls have also been replaced.
The brick contractors did not know if any work was done on the roof.
One said it had been replaced or repaired earlier. The other one said that it was not damaged that much to require repair.
I have got an impression that two different brick contractors were working there.
Regarding the condition of the roof, I heard conflicting statements.
A delivery truck driver, who was also delivering to a company in that building, where explosion occurred, said that sections of the roof collapsed.
The person in charge from the disaster recovery company did not say anything concrete, he just said it was "shaken up".
From what I have been able to observe, roofs in industrial buildings are constructed this way - once the steel beams are erected to support the walls, horizontal steel beams are welded on top to serve as a structural support for the roof.
A layer of "wavy" steel panels is then placed on top and attached with fasteners to the steel beams.
Then some white insulating panels are placed on top of those, and tar is poured on top of them.
A layer of small stones is placed on top, apparently to distribute the impact of rain droplets in various directions with a horizontal component.
With so many horizontal steel beams supporting the roof, I do not see how the roof can collapse, with the building still standing.
However, I believe it would not take much to shake up the material on top of those "wavy" steel panels to make plenty of cracks in the roof. The condition of bricks at the roofline of the building is very illustrative to the strength of the blast.
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