Baby, it’s cold outside, and nobody feels it like construction crews working outdoors when the mercury plummets.
Missed delivery dates lead to penalties, public outcry, and delays on future jobs. So crews are devising creative ways to outsmart colder-than-normal weather to keep their jobs moving. A few examples:
- Tug boats pushed through the frozen St. Croix River in Minneapolis and the state Department of Transportation used aerators to weaken the ice around a bridge under construction so shipments of heavy machinery could make it to the job site.
- Laborers laying tracks for Cincinnati’s new streetcar devised a heating system to dry concrete as they poured it in the bitter cold last week to avoid the stop of work and possible delay of the scheduled September 2016 ribbon-cutting.
- Construction of a new football stadium pressed on at South Dakota State University despite the cold, but crews rearranged their demolition schedule to accommodate the snow. When they figured out that tearing out the old stadium’s bleachers would leave a gaping hole in the ground that could fill with snow—and that they would have to spend extra time digging it out—they decided to delay that part of the project until the weather clears.
- In Missouri, the cold shut down asphalt plants, prompting crews building a new truck stop in Neosho to temporarily stop outdoor work and move indoors to install plumbing, light fixtures, and kitchen equipment.
Powering through
“It's just the outside work that's holding us up," Kealey Dorian, media specialist for Love’s, the truck stop’s owner, told local media. And it could be a while before the crews venture back to laying the parking lot and sidewalks. "We need a solid 15 days of about 40-degree weather,” Dorian said. “Then the operations can come back. So that work, we're just not able to do at this point."
South Dakota State's Associate Athletic Director Jeff Holm told The Argus Leader: “Whatever they can do, whatever is physically possible considering the elements, they are going to do. Sometimes they might even thaw the ground to put some concrete in."
Across the country, forklifts and tower cranes won’t start because it’s too cold outside; surface temperatures are too low to allow for the proper compaction of concrete; and tires are freezing on dump trucks and bulldozers. Yet construction crews—a hardy bunch by nature—aren’t sitting at home waiting for the big thaw.
Cold stress
That strong nature can cause a problem for them if they don’t take precautions against what OSHA calls “cold stress”: hypothermia, frostbite, and trench foot—a nonfreezing injury to wet, cold feet.
Hyperthermia occurs when body temperature dips from the normal 98.6 degrees to less than 95. Symptoms range from shivering, to confusion, to loss of consciousness, and even death.
A crew member whose hands or feet freeze has frostbite, which can be a threat even when temperatures are above freezing because of wind chill. You’ll know someone is in trouble if his or her skin blisters, displays gray or white patches, or feels hard.
Trench foot or immersion foot can occur when the air temperature is as high as 60 degrees when someone’s feet are constantly wet. Symptoms include swelling, numbness, and blisters.
How to prevent it
The best prevention is training, OSHA suggests, so that workers know the symptoms and can react or seek treatment before they get worse. In addition, OSHA asks that job sites have radiant heaters on job sites during cold weather, and that supervisors monitor workers and schedule regular breaks in warm areas.
Here are some tips from OSHA’s cold-weather Quick Card:
- Drink warm, sugary beverages—but no alcohol—while working outdoors.
- Dress in layers or loose-fitting clothing. If it’s waterproof, all the better. Cover the body from head to toe—except the face. A tip: Plastic garbage bags do a good job of blocking the cold.
- Move anyone who shows symptoms to a warm place.
- Change out of wet clothes and boots immediately.
- Call 911 if someone displays serious symptoms.
