Safety warnings were ignored before Deutsche Bank fire
Monday, August 18th 2008, 1:04 AM
They knew.
Months before the Deutsche Bank inferno killed two firefighters, inspectors knew there was a blatant disregard for even the most basic fire-safety rules, a Daily News probe has found.
A review of thousands of internal documents exposes how careless hardhats at the downtown site regularly sent sparks flying, started small fires and ignored repeated warnings to stop.
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Inspectors hired to look for safety failings warned a dozen times that John Galt, the company decontaminating and demolishing the tower, did not have enough safety managers to watch for blowtorch sparks.
They also reported that six small fires were put out without Fire Department notification.
"Burning details are being manned by only one fireguard. Demo foreman has been strongly advised of the need for an additional fireguard or perhaps two," an inspector wrote July 25.
Two weeks later, another report said, "At 2:47 pm S/W side column had a fire. No fire watchman or fire extinguisher on the floor."
And then tragedy struck.
A year ago Monday, investigators theorize, a worker carelessly chucked a lit cigarette, igniting the blaze that claimed the lives of Firefighters Joseph Graffagnino Jr. and Robert Beddia.
When inspectors and FDNY investigators walked back though the building nine days later, they made a shocking find in a sixth-floor room.
"Many cigarette butts were found along with a Weber black small BBQ," one wrote.
"Someone was barbecuing?" Graffagnino's outraged widow, Linda, said last week when told by The News of the finding.
"I'm not surprised. That stuff really makes me angry. How could that be allowed?" she asked.
She may soon get some answers. An internal FDNY probe is expected to be highly critical of the department's inspection failures and handling of the blaze. A grand jury investigating the blaze is expected to issue indictments next month.
The inspectors who cited trouble before the blaze worked for a subcontractor, Site Safety LLC, and were hired by URS, the company managing the Deutsche project and working with Galt.
The two companies reported to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the state agency in charge of rebuilding downtown. Site Safety and URS declined to comment, and John Galt could not be reached.
Michael Murphy, spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which owns the site, could not say whether Site Safety's reports were reviewed by the state agency.
Murphy insists close attention was paid to fire safety — and that the regular mention of problems shows how carefully inspectors were monitoring work.