Part of Reservoir Roof Collapses, Kills 1 Worker, Injures 4 Others

A worker pinned under massive piles of debris was killed Monday and four others were injured when part of a concrete roof of a large water reservoir collapsed during construction.

Workers were pouring concrete on the lid of the tanklike structure shortly before noon when metal scaffolding supporting it caved in.

The man who died, Nicolas Ramos, 31, of Hemet, was inside the 34-foot-deep pit and was buried under tons of wet concrete, steel beams and timber. The injured, working on top, fell about 20 feet into the debris-filled reservoir, but were able to scramble to safety.

“I heard a loud pop, a loud boom. I saw it starting to fall and I reached out to grab the rebar (reinforcing rod),” said Barry Jacobs, 30, of Fontana, a worker who was on top but did not fall into the reservoir. “I was just hanging on it, and it started to give way, and I grabbed another. . . . Not enough time to be scared. You just try to save yourself and hope to God your friends are OK.”

The $2.6-million reservoir off Santiago Canyon Road in east Orange is designed to store 6 million gallons of imported water for the Irvine Ranch Water District and Santiago County Water District. Construction was almost complete, and water was to be stored there as early as April.

A specially trained Orange County Fire Department rescue team tried unsuccessfully for more than two hours to save Ramos. As his co-workers waited anxiously, the firefighters cautiously inched their way through a web of creaking and shifting steel bars.

Within an hour of the accident, they had unearthed one of Ramos’ feet and then tried to cut him free with power tools, which Capt. Dan Young compared to “doing surgery with a chain saw.”

But it was too late. Two and a half hours after the accident, Ramos was declared dead.

The injured workers were identified as Victor Sanchez, Gary Luna, Dan Vernoy and Tony Sandoval. They were taken by ambulance to trauma units at UCI Medical Center in Orange and Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. Luna, Vernoy and Sanchez were in stable condition, while Sandoval was in guarded condition, hospital officials said.

Don Forsyth, a Fire Department battalion chief, said officials had “no idea whatsoever” what caused the collapse of about one-eighth of the roof, which is 200 feet in diameter.

“The whole thing happened so fast (that) something in the shoring had to be fatigued. Something you couldn’t see,” said Jack Kettering, president of Jack Kettering Co., the Artesia-based subcontractor handling the concrete work. The company has been in business for 30 years.

Cal-OSHA, California’s division of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, immediately mounted an investigation Monday that is expected to take about six weeks.

Ramos, an employee of SSC Construction, the project’s contractor, had been on the bottom of the reservoir with a hose, wetting down the concrete as his colleagues above poured it. Ramos, who is married, had worked for the company for eight years.

Capt. Steve Shomber, head of the rescue team, said Ramos’ body was trapped in scaffolding, lying atop a ladder with a 4-by-4 beam across his chest and legs. His skin was blue, an indication of asphyxiation, but no cause of death had been determined by the coroner yet.

Construction of the reservoir began last April and workers were pouring the last five cubic yards of the roof.

“We were anticipating putting water in it by around the first of April,” said Charlie Cron, general manager for the Santiago County Water District, which serves the area around Silverado and Modjeska canyons. “Now everything will be scrutinized very carefully before there is any further construction.”

The reservoir will be a major future water source for planned Irvine Co. communities that haven’t been constructed yet: the massive East Orange residential project, the northern part of Tustin Hills and nearby Irvine Co. lands expected to be developed during the next 20 years.

Don Wade, 36, of San Bernardino said that when the collapse began, he started to run and the roof crumbled below each of his footsteps.

“There was a loud bang and I barely got away. There was no warning,” said Wade, who was not hurt. “It was over in about five seconds. . . . I couldn’t tell you what happened. I was pretty scared. I barely made it off.”

Forsyth said the rescue effort took two hours because the “giant mass of debris” was unstable, and they had to shore it up with makeshift beams and air bags.

The huge air bags, each capable of lifting 32 tons, were inflated. But the material was so heavy, “they weren’t budging anything” Shomber said. One cubic yard of the concrete that collapsed weighed two tons.

The attempted rescue was perilous as strong winds rattled the roof and metal scaffolding above firefighters heads. Young, his face covered with dirt from the attempted rescue, said he made decisions minute by minute about continuing the rescue, and at one point was close to calling it off.

“That’s about as hairy as it’s ever been for me,” said Young, an Orange County firefighter for 23 years.

Two of the rescuers--Shomber, who has 10 years of experience on the county team, and engineer Dan MacKay--had performed similar rescue work after earthquakes ravaged Mexico City and San Francisco.

The structure has a concrete floor, walls and roof reinforced with steel wires and grout, Cron said.

“It’s not an uncommon reservoir design or anything. We’ve built them before,’ said Joyce Gwidt, a spokeswoman for the Irvine Ranch Water District. “It could just be one of those freak things. Nobody knows at this point.”

Several of the workers, who had previous experience with poured concrete, said they were satisfied with safety precautions at the site.

Others said serious injuries and deaths are not unexpected in construction.

“Hey, this is your first one? I’ve seen three of these,” one worker told a colleague as they watched the rescuers try to unearth Ramos.

Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this report.