By Julie Shapiro
Smoky mishaps at the Deutsche Bank building shut work down twice in the past week.
No one was injured in either of the two incidents, but both prompted Fire Dept. responses and the second exposed a weakness in the building’s safety measures.
In the second incident, at around 4 a.m. Tuesday, workers on the site called the Fire Dept. after a battery-operated forklift outside the building started smoking, said Frank Dwyer, an F.D.N.Y. spokesperson. The forklift was mistakenly left on while it was charging, which caused it to overheat, said Mike Murphy, spokesperson for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which owns the building.
Firefighters unplugged the forklift, and that would have been the end of it, but they discovered another problem: When workers tried to turn off the negative air pressure in the building, used to keep possible 9/11 contaminants inside, they found that the switch was not working correctly. Even after turning the system off, some negative air pressure remained on the first and second floors, Murphy said.
Negative air pressure contributed to the danger of the August 2007 fire at the Deutsche Bank building, which killed two firefighters. After that fire, the L.M.D.C. installed an external cutoff switch for the negative air pressure system, which could be used in emergencies to make the building safer for firefighters to enter. That was the switch that malfunctioned early Tuesday morning.
The reason the switch did not work was that workers did not properly reset it after it was activated the week before, as part of another F.D.N.Y. response, Murphy said. The L.M.D.C. is now altering the cutoff switch so that it automatically resets. The Dept. of Buildings allowed work to resume in the building Wednesday morning after testing the cutoff switch.
One week earlier, another cloud of smoke prompted a massive emergency response at the Deutsche Bank building.
This time, the smoke came from an overheated battery-operated motor on a scissor lift, which workers were using on the first floor to reach the double-height ceiling, said the F.D.N.Y. and L.M.D.C.
A scissor lift is like a cherry picker for use indoors, without a vehicle attached.
Workers noticed the smoke at 6:20 p.m. June 3 and notified the fire command chief on site, who called in 12 units to respond, said Jim Long, an F.D.N.Y. spokesperson. The alarm was briefly upgraded to a high-rise fire but Long said there were no flames and by the time firefighters arrived, the commander was already turning them away. The scissor lift was removed and no one was hurt.
The F.D.N.Y. initially said the smoke on June 3 was caused by a welding torch, but Murphy, the L.M.D.C.’s spokesperson, said workers were not using torches. The next day, F.D.N.Y.’s Long said the report of welding torches was “unfounded.”
Sparks from welding torches caused several small fires at the Deutsche Bank building in the spring and summer of 2007, before the fatal fire was sparked by a worker’s cigarette that August.
The Deutsche Bank building, damaged on 9/11, is being cleaned so it can be demolished. The building is now decontaminated down through the fourth floor, and the second and third floors should be done by the beginning of next week. Under the project’s latest schedule, the building would be fully cleaned by the middle of July and demolished by the middle of next January.
As delays have slowed the project’s progress, the cost has ballooned. On Thurs., June 11, the L.M.D.C. is expected to ask its board to authorize another $20 million for the project, Murphy said Wednesday, confirming a report on The New York Observer’s Web site. The $20 million would go to Bovis Lend Lease, the project contractor, and would bring the total compensation Bovis has received to $173 million, Murphy said.
Murphy said the L.M.D.C. has until October to decide where the money will come from, and the L.M.D.C. will seek to use funds from Bovis, Deutsche Bank and the building’s prior insurers rather than using government money. The corporation has received some money back under prior agreements and will be making further claims for reimbursed funds in the future, but it will also have to defend civil lawsuits connected to the fatal fire.
Murphy also confirmed that the L.M.D.C. estimates it will need to find an additional $30 to $35 million for the project before it is over.
Julie@DowntownExpress.com
