Thinking Outside the Fence - GL in Construction

By: Christina Merriott, CHST

For the first 20 years of my construction career, I worked in the heavy highway/civil industry. The first 5 years were spent in the estimating/project management side. The following 15 years in as a safety professional. In the heavy highway/civil industry, safety is more than just hazard/risk assessments and injury/illness reporting and investigation. It includes Property Damages and General Liability incidents and investigations. A recent career change brought me to the world of safety consulting for a variety of clients. Much less heavy civil and more building construction. There are many similarities across the building trades and highway construction divisions. The one difference that really caught me off-guard was the lack of attention to property damage or general liability concerns as it relates to safety and jobsite security. Perhaps its just a more obvious dilemma when you have to maintain traffic on a public roadway versus fencing a property for a new building or building renovation.

When a worker is injured on the job, everyone takes notice. An investigation is done to determine the root cause and make improvements to prevent similar situations in the future. Yet, a property damage incident seems to fall through the system. Let the insurance and management deal with it and move on. If it costs the company money to repair, replace, and/or litigate, shouldn’t it be investigated? Even more so, what if that property damage is really a near-miss employee or non-employee injury or fatality? We could miss an opportunity to save a life if we ignore a property damage incident.

Let’s walk through a hypothetical situation. Take a building site in a busy urban area. To secure the site, we build a temporary fence around the perimeter. Lock the gates and post danger signs: “Keep Out!”; “Danger – Construction Zone”; Authorized Personnel Only”; “Hard Hat, Safety Glasses, Safety Toe Boots Required Beyond this Point”; etc. Does this really deter the public from passing through? If crossing that lot is the shortcut they’ve been using for years, don’t expect a fence and a few signs to stop them. Same thing with thieves looking for a quick score for the pawn shop. Look for gaps forced open between posts or cut into the fence. Think about how the site was left overnight? We put up guards for the workers who know the site hazards. But what about the trespasser crossing the site after dark? Going one step further, think about the materials and equipment stored inside the fence. Identify areas where materials could fall outside the fence and damage others property or people. This includes winds or other natural disasters that could move construction materials or debris into a public area.

So that covers the fence and inside the lot. What about outside the fence? You have to look at what hazards the fence itself may cause the general public. Is the fence supported to prevent falling on to public property? Also check the fence base supports to prevent trip and fall hazards as well as maintain ADA access. Emergency access to adjacent buildings can inadvertently be blocked too. It is really easy to push a portion of fence out to get a few more feet to work inside. That few extra feet may impede traffic and cause an accident. Walking the perimeter daily will help identify potential conflicts with traffic and pedestrians. If the fence is damaged or there are signs of an accident that may have been caused by the building project, investigate it. You may even need to file a police report for additional documentation.

Speaking of the police, working with local emergency responders is also a good idea. Not only to coordinate access to the adjacent properties, but also to get them familiar with your site. If you have multiple gates, label them as part of your emergency action plan. Should you need to block lanes of traffic at any point for material deliveries or equipment moves, they will need to know. It could affect their response times to the community. There are also federal, state, and local regulations regarding traffic control. If traffic control plans are not built into the project, one will need to be created.

As with everything, planning and communication are important. Assess/identify potential hazards. Plan accordingly and communicate that plan with the workers inside the fence and the community outside the fence. If there is damage to either the construction property or public property, investigate and document. Search for that root cause and improve the plan and site security.