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But questions linger in convention mishap

Friday, June 07, 2002

By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Correction/Clarification: (Published June 8, 2002) The Allegheny County coroner, Dr. Cyril Wecht, will recommend whether charges should be filed in the death of a construction worker at the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center. A story yesterday about an inquest in the death of ironworker Paul Corsi Jr. misstated who would make the recommendation to the district attorney's office.

Testimony at a coroner's inquest yesterday bolstered the theory that a giant steel truss collapsed at the convention center construction site because the wrong-sized nuts were used to anchor the truss to the building's foundation.

	Paul Corsi Sr. talks about the death of his son Paul Jr. after testimony at a coroner's inquest yesterday regarding the partial collapse of the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center. At left is Christine Corsi, Paul Jr.'s sister. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

But new questions arose in the second day of the inquiry into the Feb. 12 collapse, which killed a worker and injured two others.

Unsettled issues include:

How did the incorrect nuts -- 1-inch-thick, silver in color and not made of hardened steel -- get into bins inside the construction trailer at the job site? No official from Dick Corp., the steel erector, could answer that yesterday. Some Dick project supervisors said they weren't aware the wrong-sized nuts were on the construction site.

Why weren't any of the correct nuts in the equipment trailer? The correct nuts are 2 inches thick, black in color and heat-treated to enable them to support heavy loads.

Why did no one from either Dick Corp. or Solar Testing Labs, an inspection firm working for the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority, conduct a visual inspection of the nut-and-bolt assemblies that might have detected that incorrect nuts had been attached?

The truss that collapsed was the 13th in a series of 15 trusses that form the principal north-south support for the $354 million convention center.

On Feb. 12, the 13th truss, also called line 13, came crashing down, killing ironworker Paul Corsi Jr., 38, of Moon, and injuring two co-workers.

The inquest is being conducted by Allegheny County First Assistant District Attorney Edward Borkowski and presided over by hearing officer Michael George, a lawyer. At the conclusion, George will make a recommendation to the district attorney's office on whether charges should be filed in connection with Corsi's death, which tentatively has been ruled accidental.

Each 90-foot-high truss is attached to a concrete and steel base by a series of eight bolts -- threaded rods that are 18 inches long and one inch thick. The bolts are locked into place by using 2-inch, heat-hardened nuts. But in the case of truss 13, the smaller, 1-inch-thick nuts were mistakenly used.

Dick Corp. general foreman Robert Huber and construction foreman Keith Rogers said they now believe the 150-ton truss collapsed because wrong nuts were used to fasten the truss to its base.

"We know the wrong nuts were used here. We're trying to find out why," Borkowski told another Dick Corp. official, Hal Harmon.

George was critical of the inspection practices Dick Corp. used to make sure the base connections were secure. He said that seemed to him like a "vitally important" part of the project.

He asked Huber whether Dick Corp. officials made regular inspections of the bolt-and-nut connections.

"I am not aware of anybody who did that," Huber said. "I didn't do that."

"Isn't that a glaring and obvious safety defect?" George asked.

"I wouldn't say that," Huber replied.

"It's not a safety defect?" a surprised George retorted.

Huber paused for a moment and then said, "There was a safety problem there, I guess."

Later in the hearing, George asked Huber's superior, project director Harmon, about Dick's inspection practices. Harmon said there is no written policy on inspections, but said that any one of three people -- himself, Huber or Rogers -- could have inspected the truss connection.

But on line 13, Harmon said, "I didn't personally inspect that work."

Harmon said he didn't know if Solar Testing Labs had inspected the truss-to-base connection. Solar is employed by the Sports & Exhibition Authority to monitor the project. No one from Solar was at the hearing yesterday.

Crew foreman Rogers said he inspected the line 13 connections with his gloved hand to make sure that nuts were attached to the threaded rods. But he said he didn't make a visual inspection, which could have detected the short, silver nuts -- the wrong ones -- instead of the correct 2-inch black nuts.

George asked Rogers why he didn't look at the nuts rather than just feeling them with his hand.

"I had faith in my crew," Rogers said. He also said that inspecting the bolts-and-nuts assembly wasn't his job.

"I'm not a bolt inspector," Rogers said, adding that someone from Solar Testing Labs was supposed to check the nuts and rods.

Harmon said that Rogers' crew had worked on previous truss lines -- Nos. 10, 11 and 12 -- and had used the correct 2-inch nuts.

"I trusted these people to do the job correctly" on truss line 13, Harmon said.

In his testimony yesterday, Rogers contradicted three members of his construction crew when he insisted that he had told them what kind of nuts and rods to use to connect the steel truss to the base.

Rogers said his four-man crew would "huddle" and "get a game plan" before putting the parts of the truss together. His crew was Corsi and ironworkers Matthew Abate, Dorsey Morehead and Martin Griffin.

"I always told them to use the Williams bars and the big nuts" when connecting the truss to the base, Rogers said, referring to 18-inch-long threaded rods made by Williams Form Engineering Corp. of Grand Rapids, Mich.

Previously, Abate, Morehead and Griffin had testified at the inquest that they received no instruction on which nuts and bars to use.

Abate admitted getting the wrong type of nuts from a construction trailer. He said there were no 2-inch nuts in the trailer on Feb. 4, the day the truss was connected. No one could explain why there were no 2-inch nuts in the trailer when Abate picked up the wrong ones.

George asked Rogers how three members of his crew could claim they got no instruction on the nuts and rods while Rogers insisted they had. Rogers said he couldn't explain it.

George recessed the inquest until June 25, when an official of the Williams company, which made the bolts and nuts, is expected to testify.