THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 1995               TAG: 9507190418
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MARA STANLEY, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                            LENGTH: Short :   47 lines

CEMENT POURINGS MUST BE INSPECTED. WERE RULES FOLLOWED?

Under state law, construction like that which collapsed at the City Jail addition Tuesday be inspected before, while and after cement is poured.

But neither state safety officials nor those with construction firms on the job could say whether the inspections took place.

Stephen Ballard, president of S.B. Ballard Inc. of Norfolk, said Elco Concrete Co. of Richmond had been hired to build and inspect the shoring for the concrete forms. The shoring, or temporary underpinnings, are made of steel, aluminum and wood, Ballard said.

S.B. Ballard Inc. is a subcontractor on the $21.5 million job. It was hired to pour the cement mixture into temporary forms to create the floors. The general contractor is Armada Hoffler Construction Co. of Chesapeake.

A spokesman for Elco at the construction site would not comment.

The type of construction used to build the floors of the jail addition is called ``cast-in-place,'' said a safety inspector for the State Department of Labor and Industry.

The inspector said a temporary form is built around steel support bars, called ``rebars.'' Shoring that resembles scaffolding is built from the floor below to support the form and the newly poured concrete, he said.

Ballard said about 104 yards of wet concrete, weighing about 100 tons, poured to the second floor when the shoring supporting the third floor collapsed. Workers fell about a dozen feet amid the rubble.

``If there are safety violations, then the investigators will tell us,'' said Lou Haddad, president of Armada Hoffler. ``We can't say what went wrong because we haven't heard yet.''

Haddad said he doubts there were any safety violations, however, and said the collapse was an accident.

``What caused it at this point is unknown,'' the state safety inspector said.

The State Department of Labor and Industry, after its inspection, allowed cleanup to begin Tuesday.

Construction was scheduled to resume today, ``as soon as we were comfortable with everyone's safety,'' Haddad said.

KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT GENERAL NORFOLK CITY JAIL INJURIES by CNB