June 23, 2008

50 years later, survivors recall Second Narrows Bridge collapse

VANCOUVER

Quitting time was approaching for dozens of ironworkers as they toiled 40 metres above Burrard Inlet, building the new Second Narrows Bridge.

They were bolting together the spans on the north side of the inlet that would eventually meet with those on the south end, connecting North Vancouver to Vancouver.

It was June 17, 1958, and the state-of-the-art, cantilever bridge was already a year into construction.

The bridge’s huge, heavy beams were held together by thousands of bolts, and some of the men were astride the beams, inserting the bolts; others were inside, placing the massive nuts on the bolts as they came through.

Many men were on the fifth span, which by now jutted well out over the inlet.

“I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ It was just like high-powered rifle shots.

“The bolts and splices were just banging off like a high-powered gun,” said Norm Atkinson, now 80, an ironworker who survived that day and one of only four still alive.

Nineteen people died instantly or soon after —14 ironworkers, three engineers, a painter, and a commercial diver who died a couple days later when he drowned trying to recover a body.

Atkinson’s job that day was to fasten the giant steel pieces together with the bolts. Perched like a cowboy on a bucking bronco, he was atop the extreme end of the span, jutting out over the water.

He and the others dropped 40 to 50 metres to the water below. Weighted by his tool belt, he then plunged 20 metres below the surface, hitting bottom before cutting loose his belt and starting to rise.

“I could see the difference in the water, dark, lighter, lighter and I knew I’d be getting at the top pretty quick.”

This week at a site on a bluff overlooking what was renamed in 1994 the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, the remaining survivors, widows, families, current ironworkers and local dignitaries were to mark the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.

The collapse, attributed in an inquest and royal commission to a faulty engineering calculation on a temporary support or “falsework” remains today the worst industrial accident in B.C. in terms of the number of fatalities.

The collapse was blamed on calculations for the falsework, a temporary upright structure to hold up the span. It could not hold the weight.

Lou Lessard, 79, was a foreman that day, in charge of the “raising gang” that takes the steel from the railroad car, pulls it up and hooks it together with the bolts.

“We heard a sharp noise and that’s all we heard and the bridge made a splash on the water and at the same time we were making a splash on the water ourselves,” said Lessard, who fell about 45 metres, breaking an arm and leg.

In those days, safety regulations were more lax. Workers wore lifejackets but, unlike today, didn’t have to be attached by cable and safety harness.

Al Johnson, the regional director for construction for WorkSafe B.C., said safety has made huge strides in the past five decades.

Canadian Press

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