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Community Corner

The Dangers of Irresponsible Leadership

There’s been much discussion around Southbury about the Dump Truck accident in June of this year – and how news of it was suppressed by Mr. Edelson – until brought to the attention of the Board of Selectman by a private citizen on September 19th.  I was given a copy of a document – written by an engineer who lives in town.  This document was presented by the engineer - to the Board of Selectman on October 17th – but has not been published anywhere else to my knowledge.  It’s an interesting read – and I decided to publish it here – verbatim – as others may welcome his outlook on the matter.

Before opting to publish this document – I reviewed a video of the Edelson Press Conference about this accident – which is available on the town website.  After that review – I realized that this guy hit the nail on the head!  I was wondering why Edelson admitted to making mistakes in the way he handled this truck incident at the debate last week – and now I know why.

Basically – Edelson did us all a major disservice when he chose to suppress (cover-up) the news of the accident – because it precluded other responsible members of the town government and administration from getting involved with figuring out how to prevent this from happening again.  I suppose Edelson thought it best to keep it a secret – so as to avoid a potentially embarrassing issue during the coming campaign.   Well – as usual – the cover-up gets castigated more severely than the event itself.   I suggest that you all read this over – and see for yourself.

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COMMENTS ON SOUTHBURY DUMP TRUCK ACCIDENT

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George Bertram

October 17, 2013

 

After watching a video of First Selectman Edelson’s Press Conference on the now infamous Dump Truck accident, held on September 24th at the site of the incident, and studying half a dozen photos of the damaged truck which were circulated at the Board of Selectman meeting on September 19th, I feel compelled to make the following comments.

I preface this letter by stating that I have a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have worked as an engineer for over 38 years, and have been named inventor on over 25 US patents.  Currently, I hold the position of Director of Engineering for the IntelliPack division of Pregis Corp.; and have been a resident of Southbury since 2008.

 

1.      The root cause of the accident was not determined.

1.1.   The first step in assessing any serious accident or near miss is to determine the root cause. Neither Mr. Edelson nor his associates gave any indication of root cause at the Press Conference.  I was very dissatisfied with the lack of any coherent explanation.  As a mechanical engineer, I knew that there had to be a clear-cut reason as to why this happened. 

1.2.   If somebody in that group understood the mechanism of how the truck tipped over in such an unusual and catastrophic manner, they did not share that information at the Press Conference. It seems that nobody from town management had any idea as to why this occurred.

1.3.   Trucks of that magnitude don’t just tip over into a twisted pile of wreckage of their own accord, even when dumping a heavy load.  An earth moving task that should have been routine and uneventful went dangerously wrong to the point that persons could have been injured or killed, and now the town has a damaged truck and a potentially large monetary loss.

1.4.   Based on their comments, neither Mr. Edelson nor his crew chief had a clue as to why this happened.  Or if they did, they weren’t willing to share that information with the public.  Without an understanding of the causative factors, the responsible parties will not be able to create a list of corrective actions, and the unfortunate incident is more likely to recur.

 

2.      No corrective actions were taken.

2.1.   Once the root cause or causes of an accident have been ascertained, the responsible parties should endeavor to eliminate or mitigate the causal factors to the maximum extent of what is practical or doable.  A responsible management team should always take corrective actions once they become aware of hazards of this nature.

2.2.   As with root cause, the folks talking at the Press Conference offered absolutely no description of what work rules or procedures had been changed in order to prevent this mishap from recurring.  It seems that the work at this site will continue to be done like before the accident, with no discernible changes, except for some vague comments about driver training.  I found that disconcerting.

2.3.   In my opinion, it is inexcusable for a management team to stand pat, making no changes whatsoever after an incident like this.  At the very least, Mr. Edelson should have brought in competent experts for consultation, if he or his crew couldn’t figure out what happened.

 

3.      Here’s what I think happened.

3.1.   The dumping ground for this massive truck is at the top of a giant pile of dirt, rubble, stone, debris, broken asphalt, and whatever other materials the town workers opt to put into it.  It’s a huge pile, about fifty feet high, to which town workers add or subtract material as needed.  In my opinion, this sort of pile is inherently unstable for heavy equipment, and should be driven upon with great caution or perhaps not driven upon at all.

3.2.   In this incident, the driver drove the truck to the top of this pile and stopped in a location near the edge of a steep drop-off.  He then started to lift the dump body as he’s probably done dozens of times before so as to dump his cargo.  However, on this particular instance something is different, but the driver doesn’t realize it and he and the truck are placed in a very dangerous situation.

3.3.   The hidden danger in this case is the unstable ground under the left rear wheel of the truck.  As the driver starts to raise his dump body, the ground, if you want to call it that, collapsed like a mini sink hole or land slide under the truck’s left rear wheels as the rising dump body transferred weight from the front to the rear.  There may have been no easy means for the driver, or anyone else for that matter, to determine where the weak spots in a pile of rubble and dirt are likely to be ahead of time. 

3.4.   At this point, it’s probably impossible to determine why the ground collapsed in this particular spot at that particular time.  Perhaps that area of the dirt pile had been recently disturbed.  Maybe the heavy rains of June played a role in undermining the base.  Or, maybe an unlucky combination of materials inside the pile made for a slip plane that was ready to give way under the right conditions.  That will never be known at this point.

3.5.   To compound the problem, much of the load got stuck in the higher part of the dump body as it lifted, possibly because it was wet, as stated by a couple of different people at the Press Conference.  This sticking prolonged the time that the severe twisting load was applied to the truck body.  It sounded to me like Mr. Edelson and his crews were hinting at the press conference that this was the root cause of the accident, although they never stated that clearly.

3.6.   Although the “stuck load” was a contributing factor it was clearly not a causal factor.  Loads get stuck in dump truck bodies all the time, and the truck frames don’t twist and collapse.  The cause of this accident was simply the collapse of ground under one set of rear wheels, and not the other.  The truck frame was unable to support the bending moment that was applied by the raised load in the dump body, as one set of wheels lost support.

3.7.   Thus, the truck twisted and was basically destroyed.  Honestly, it’s not that hard to figure out what happened here.

 

4.      What corrective actions should be taken?

4.1.   The simple fix here is to stop driving this type of truck onto this dirt pile.  Dump trucks of this type need a stable wheel base to dump a heavy load like that, and the surface of this pile is inherently unstable.  This type of truck is more suited to working on an asphalt road, and not on a loose pile of dirt.  A totally different kind of dump vehicle is required for working on unstable ground.  Actually, I’m a bit surprised that something like this didn’t happen sooner.

4.2.   I suggest that the truck drivers be instructed to dump their load in a safe place, where the ground is not likely to collapse, and use heavy earth movers to move it up to the top of the pile if need be.  I believe that the town already owns earth moving equipment that’s built to handle unstable terrain much better than this type of dump truck.

4.3.   Maybe the best approach is to eliminate this dirt pile completely.  I don’t know why the town needs one especially if it poses a hazard to town employees.  Whatever money is saved by having this pile was likely wiped out by the $100,000 loss on this ruined truck.  

4.4.   I suggest that we implement a town wide “Accident Prevention and Review” process, so that we might be able to spot and correct these hidden dangers before they happen, and put a procedure in place to thoroughly review incidents like this after they occur, with an eye towards future prevention.  The actions, or lack thereof, taken by the town’s management team after this incident resemble an attempted cover-up more than anything else.

 

Thank goodness nobody got hurt this time.  If this happens again, we may not be so lucky.  I strongly urge that the town undertake a full review of this accident – ASAP - to insure that it won’t happen again.

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