New regulations take effect on Oct. 1 to improve tower crane workers’ safety in B.C.
Employers are now required to submit a written Notice of Project to WorkSafeBC at least two weeks before crane activity starts, which includes climbing or repositioning.
The agency says it will help guide inspectors and identify the supervisor responsible for the operation.
The rules follow a string of recent incidents, including a fatal accident in Oakridge in February that claimed the life of a young mother of two from Mexico.
Yuridia Flores became a permanent resident of Canada in 2023.
Her first job was working as a labourer at the massive project at Cambie Street and 41st Avenue. Tragically, it would also be her last.
Daniel Hernandez, her common-law husband of eight years, said he had left his job as a glazer at the same site early for an appointment when he got the call no partner ever wants.
“I got a phone call saying Yuridia was hurt or someone was hurt and I needed to go back,” he told Global News.
In August, a fire broke out at a six-storey building in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood and spread to several nearby houses, damaging nine homes and causing a crane across the street to collapse.
Removal of the crane took weeks.
Last week, TransLink closed the Millennium Line’s East Vancouver terminus station as crews worked to deal with a nearby crane incident.
The station reopened Friday morning.
TransLink suspended service to the VCC-Clark station around 11 a.m. on Sept. 26, citing concern about an “unstable crane.”
The station is next to a construction site where crews are working on a five-storey building called Hive.
In Kelowna, on July 12, 2021, a crane helping construct a residential tower on St. Paul Street collapsed, killing four construction workers and another man working in an adjacent building.
The collapse killed Cailen Vilness, Jared Zook, Eric Stemmer, Patrick Stemmer and Brad Zawislak.
Several lawsuits have been launched in the accident’s wake, with police recommending charges of negligence causing death.
Chris Vilness, Cailen’s father, told Global News that he is surprised a lot of these safety measures were not already in place.
“It wasn’t a shocker that these were actually going to be implemented,” he said. “It’s pretty standard in the industry I think.”
Vilness said this is one area of the construction industry that was lacking safety measures and while these guidelines will help, someone needs to make sure they are being adhered to or there is no point to them.
” I don’t believe that we’re still doing enough to make sure this industry is following the guidelines,” he added.
Vilness said it never should have taken three years to make changes.
According to WorkSafeBC, approximately 350 tower cranes are currently operating in B.C.
The agency determined that with more cranes in operation than ever before, the risks are increasing.