The Steel Men

Today was somewhat of a solemn day for Vancouver as the city recalled a tragedy that took place half a century ago. For it was on this date in 1958 that the Second Narrows Bridge collapsed while under construction and 18 men, mostly ironworkers, fell to their deaths in the chilly waters of Burrard Inlet. Many others were injured, some severely, and a great many more were left to grieve the loss of loved ones. In the aftermath the calamity was to prove an entirely preventable event if only an inexperienced engineer or a construction company plan checker had simply referred to a standard book of load charts on the support designs.

(Excerpt: The Vancouver Sun June 17, 2008)

The air was hot and thick the day the unfinished bridge reaching south across Burrard Inlet crashed into the salt water below.

A series of sharp bangs punctured the afternoon calm of June 17, 1958 and all at once, the steel shuddered. The front section of the Second Narrows Bridge, still unconnected to the south side, collapsed. Within a split-second, the section behind it fell too, crushing men under the tangled metal. Workers were flung into the inlet, some jumped and screamed before they struck the water. Others were pulled under, weighted down by safety harnesses attached to heavy steel beams.

Lou Lessard, a 29 year old foreman, fell 38 metres (125 ft). He opened his eyes in water thick with sediment disturbed by the collapse and could hardly tell which way was up. Then he saw slivers of sunlight shining through the water and Lessard found his way to the surface to take a breath. There he clung to a piece of floating debris. Lessard looked up to see what was left of the mangled structure.

"I could see that beautiful bridge that used to be there," he said. "It was broken and twisted."

All around him, men were injured and dying.

"That stays on your mind for the rest of your life."

Lessard survived the bridge's collapse with a broken arm, leg and internal injuries. Eighteen workers were killed. Then, two days later, the bridge claimed another life when a diver looking for bodies was trapped underwater.

A royal commission into the collapse deemed it was the result of a human error. A junior engineer, who died at the scene, had underestimated the weight-bearing ability of a temporary arm supporting the fifth span of the bridge. Dominion Bridge, the company in charge, failed to catch the error in the design specifications and was accused of cutting corners in a drive to finish the bridge faster.

Despite the terror of the collapse, Lessard went back to ironworking and helped complete the replacement bridge in 1960. But his memories of that first bridge coming down 50 years ago have not faded.

"It will become harder and harder for the details to live on as more survivors die and the event fades further into the past. It's been a very long time," said Lessard, now 79. "I want to pass to them the tradition we've been following."

There's something different about ironworkers for by the very definition of their job theirs is a life of defying death and the risking violating the laws of gravity every day. They are known as "The Steel Men", although I suppose they should also be known as the steel women, too. Those who willingly venture out onto the steel skeletons of structures being assembled at frightening heights are a breed apart from most of us. It's intertesting to note that most of them eventually die from complications of smoking, excess drinking and such, not from falling to their deaths or being struck by falling objects. Maybe it's the lifestyle and cowboy attitude this type of person usually posseses that makes them lean toward unhealthy habits with the bravado they are so well known for. Certainly, though, one cannot question their courage, their stamina, and their unstoppable will to complete the job...this is the same today as it was fifty years ago when the half-finished Second Narrows Bridge came crashing down from underneath them.

The modern cities of the world are what they are because of ironworkers. These men and women are the reason that the bridges and skyscrapers we marvel at exist, not the executives and pencil pushers who work in them or the financiers, architects, engineers and others who put the package together beforehand. For without the ironworkers their dreams would never get beyond the paper stage. And were it not for this group of incredibly hard working daredevils we would most likely still be living in a world of wooden structures only a few storeys high and where stone castles would still be the greatest architectural achievements of all. It's hard to comprehend a disaster like the Second Narrows collapse happening today in our digital world where computer aided designs do not permit mistakes to be made and therefore it is impossible for mishaps to occur. But in the back of our minds we all know that things do go wrong from time to time, even on the best planned, designed and thought out of projects. This is why we hold our breath when we look up and see an ironworker walking, nonchalantly, across a steel girder 600 feet above the ground. We know that, in spite of everything, that individual is always only one misstep away from certain death. None know this better than the ironworkers themselves...except maybe for those who love them and fear for them. There's an old joke that goes: Q - How many days are there in the week of an ironworker's family? A - There's 3; Saturday, Sunday and Dreadday.

I happened to be in Vancouver today and found it fascinating that in this day and age one of the world's great modern cities would take a few moments out of its hectic existence to pause and remember the ironworkers who died five decades ago, but that they did. At noon Lou Lessard spoke at a ceremony near the site of the 1958 collapse, a large crowd gathered to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bridge coming down and much of the rest of the city watched on television or tuned in to either live feeds or radio to listen. It was a short ceremony but everyone there was present to recall the great collapse, and to honor and pay tribute to the memory of those long ago steel men.




The Second Narrows Bridge June 17, 1958



Ron

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Edit note:

Just patching up a weak link to the picture.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

As only Ron can tell it, fanatic story, as always.

Jack

Ron...great story...yet it’s a tragedy that so many people had to die because of a simple oversight.

I marvel at these guys who balance on steel girders. I used to have a poster of a bunch of steelworkers having lunch near the top of the Empire State Building...I used to get dizzy just thinking about being that high with only a few inches of steel to balance on...yikes! I probably would have fumbled my lunch pale and tossed my cookies before first break...ha!

“ Lionheart
~

Hmmm...

Thought I'd replied to this one.

~ Jack: I take it you liked this one. I always appreciate your taking the time to read my stuff and let me know what you think, thanks.

~ Lion: Simply put, it would take a damned sight more than a loaded gun to ever get me to go way up there and walk on those metal beams...there isn't enough "hero pay" in the world to even make me consider it.

Thanks guys.