Just had a 200-pound steam drum shift on me during a lift in Gary, Indiana

Last Tuesday we were setting a steam drum at the new refinery expansion out in Gary. We had the crane all rigged up and I gave the hand signal to start the lift. About 10 feet up, the wind caught it and the whole thing swung bad. The tag lines we had weren't enough to keep it steady and it scraped against a steel beam. I had to signal a hard stop and we spent the next 45 minutes re-rigging with heavier chokers and adding an extra tag line. My supervisor was yelling at me for not accounting for the gust conditions. Anyone else have a lift go sideways because of weather you didn't see coming?

3 comments

3 Comments

lilya7629d agoTop Commenter

Man yeah, extra tag lines saved my ass on a similar lift.

karenh561mo ago

Did the wind just rip right through your shirt like it does mine every time I'm near Lake Michigan, or was it more of a polite shove? I swear Gary winds have a personal grudge against crane operators, I once had a gust flip my hard hat around backwards while I was giving signals. Made me look like I was trying to flag down a plane instead of directing a lift, real professional look.

victor_robinson1mo ago

Read a report last month that said wind is the number one cause of dropped loads in crane operations, something like 40 percent of all incidents. It's crazy how fast those gusts can hit you, especially around those big steel structures where the wind funnels through. Had a similar thing happen to me back in 2019 when we were setting a heat exchanger in Joliet, the wind just came out of nowhere and we had to drop the load onto a temporary cribbing because the tag lines were useless. That supervisor yelling at you probably never worked a lift in Gary before, that lake wind is no joke and it changes direction every ten minutes.