In a short, two-minute YouTube video uploaded by the Wall Street Journal in 2014, a worker is seen barely escaping unharmed from a fire in a wood-framed apartment building under construction in Hous- ton, Texas. He stands on the edge of a fifth-floor balcony, frantically waving his arms, in desperate hope for a rescue. The harrowing video ends with the worker jumping safely to the ladder of a fire truck mere moments before the blazing roof collapses behind him. Kevin McDermott never forgot that nearly tragic tale. “He jumped from a porch to the one below just as the firefighters were trying to set up and get over there,” he recalls. “If they had an alarm in the building and smoke detectors to sense the fire, it would have given him time to evacuate.” Until recently such technology did not exist for this particular application. Now, he recom- mends the WES3 Fire and Emergency System from Ramtech Electronics. Fire safety and risk mitigation are second nature to McDer- mott, project safety manager for Turner Construction, a U.S.- based company that completes more than 1,500 projects a year internationally to the tune of $12 billion, according to its website. He recently celebrated his two-year anniversary with Turner but is no stranger to construction, having been a safety manager and superintendent for other large companies over the years. McDermott’s list of credentials is long and impressive; he holds three distinct certifications from the Bureau of Certi- fied Safety Professionals as well as being an OSHA Certi- fied Instructor, and also serves as current president of the Washington Metro Area Construction Safety Association, to name a few. His career began as a Fleet Marine Force Hos- pital Corpsman with the Navy and he has worked on several federal projects to date. One such project is Hopper Hall, the new Cyber Building currently being erected on the Naval Academy grounds in Annapolis, Maryland. It started in October of 2016 and is slated to be completed and operational for the 2020-21 school year. Turner’s first experience using the WES3 system was on a project in New York, but this project would mark the first time McDermott had the opportunity to deploy it. The building is named after Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, known as the "mother of computing" for her contributions to the field of computer science back in a time when neither computers nor women in science were commonplace. The project and its name are both noteworthy because this will Turner Protects Workers in U.S. Navy Building with WES3
not only be the first building named after a woman at any of the nation's three major service academies, but it will most likely be the last major structure to break ground in the Naval Yard. Protecting the people, equipment, and structures on construction sites such as these is not only vitally important; it also poses a unique set of challenges. As a result, The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates that more than 6,000 fires occur each year on con- struction and major renovation sites, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property damage and multiple lives lost. These are figures that, with proper protocols in place according to those set forth in NFPA 241: Standard for Safeguarding Construction, Alteration, and Demolition Operations, have every reason to decrease. That’s typically not the case, however. While the standard calls for an appropriate fire safety program to be in place and fully operational
Project Safety Manager Kevin McDermott adjusts settings on the WES3 Fire and Emergency System at Turner Construction’s Hopper Hall project in Annapolis, Md.
21
may 2020
csengineermag.com
Made with FlippingBook Annual report