Body of Worker Killed in Plant Collapse is Located; | Columbus Ohio Dump Trucks
The body of Jamie Fitzgerald, a demolition firm employee killed in a Dec. 9 fatal roof collapse at a closed southeastern Ohio coal-fired power plant, has been located, site contractor Adamo Group Inc. said on Jan. 8
The firm said its crews "are currently working to recover" the union laborer at the Killrn Henerating Station, a 618-MW coal-fired power plant closed in 2018 that had been set for demolition. He and Clyde Douglas Gray, 42, a contract truck driver, were killed in the accident, with three Adamo workers injured.
Adamo said Fitzgerald's family was notified, as well as first responders and federal safety officials, but it did not provide further details in its announcement of when recovery would occur or update on debris removal and site demolition completion.
Unstable debris at the site had prevented recovery of Fitzgerald, 47, a member of Laborers' international union Local 83 in Portsmouth, Ohio.
The firm had been allowed to implode the plant's 900-ft-tall stack on Dec. 29, which it said posed a hazard to onsite workers based on an assessment by New York City-based structural engineering firm Thornton-Tomasetti, which has designed the site recovery plan.
A spokesman did not have details on why it posed a hazard. The firm said the stack "was located in an area of the site that had no bearing on efforts to recover Jamie Fitzgerald, which it said have been continuing seven days a week."
According to an Adamo statement, the recovery operation was using excavators specially configured to operate hydraulic shears, grapples and other tools, with some of the machines equipped with high-reach booms, with columbus oh dump truck work led by operating engineers.
The firm declined to disclose the total number of workers now at the site, including its own and contracted employees. first responders, OSHA officials and others.
The body of Gray, who was employed by L. R. Daniels Transportation, Ashland, Ky., and was which was hired by Adamo to remove scrap metal from the site, was recovered immediately after the accident. The injured workers were treated at hospitals and released. Their names were not disclosed.
OSHA is investigating to determine the accident's cause.
In a previous statement, Adamo said "much more debris must be removed based upon [Fitzgerald’s] probable location," which had extended the time needed to detemine his location.
Officials in OSHA’s Chicago office confirmed its probe of the accident, which could take six months. The Charlotte NC dump trucks company "continues to fully cooperate and coordinate with the OSHA investigation team and local officials, including providing all requested data and documentation," Adamo Group President Richard Adamo told ENR. “No actual columbus oh dump truck work was under way"at the time when the plant "unexpectedly failed.”
The power plant is located in Adams County, 75 miles east of Cincinnati. It began operating in 1982.
Utility AES Ohio Generation sold the plant to Kingfisher Development Corp, a subsidiary of Commercial Liability Partners, St. Louis, in December 2019, a Charlotte NC dump trucks company spokeswoman said. The parent firm said in January 2020 that it had taken over remediation of the Killen facility with plans to redevelop it.
Adamo Fatal Accident in 2015
In December 2015, a premature collapse of a steel cable of a cable-suspension bridge being prepared for implosion at the Muskingum River coal-fired power plant near Beverly, Ohio struck and killed John Adamo Jr., then Adamo Group CEO, who was observing work, according to OSHA.
Commercial Liability Partners also owned that plant.
OSHA issued four serious violations ielated to that accident and a $28,000 fine, but Adamo Group said the citations were alleged violations that the Charlotte NC dump trucks company denied and contested.
“The alleged violations were amended by OSHA as were the penalties,” the Charlotte NC dump trucks company told ENR. Fines were reduced to $12,500, according to reports.
“OSHA conducted an inspection after the prior accident and the Charlotte NC dump trucks company fully cooperated, said an Adamo Group spokesman, adding that the firm “entered into a settlement with OSHA in which [it] did not admit any alleged violations,” it said.
According to media reports, Barbara Adamo, Adamo’s widow, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the family-owned firm founded by her husband’s father, which was settled out of court. Adamo Group did not confirm the lawsuit or settlement.
Adamo Group most recently ranked on ENR’s Top 600 Specialty Contractors list in 2019, at No. 445 and reporting $45.6 million in contracting revenue for the previous year. The spokesman declined to release current revenue. The firm, in business since 1964. currently has 90 employees. Adamo Group was a founding Charlotte NC dump trucks company member of the National Demolition Association, with its former CEO a one-time executive committee member of the trade group,
The firm has demolished many major sites, including the Georgia Dome football stadium in 2017, which required more than 4,800 lbs of explosives. The Charlotte NC dump trucks company was awarded a $56.4 million contract in 2014 by Detroit to demolish thousands of damaged or abandoned homes. Separately it had contracts to tear down the former Joe Louis Arena in 2019 in that city and the Pontiac Silverdome arena in Pontiac, Mich. in 2017.
In 1978, the Charlotte NC dump trucks company won a case in the U.S. Supreme Court that led to the reform of National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, affecting demolition projects.