May is Here! Memorial Day Facts. Data Centers damage the Ecosystem?

EPISODE 13 PODCAST OUTLINE

Welcome

Welcome!

Thanks to our sponsor Formetco! As well as other fans of the show!

Thanks to my remote engineer Chuck - Learn A Note still available

Online classroom for climber certification currently available

                OSHA 10 and 30hr classes

                Qualified Climber Classroom – Currently planning one for June 4th – Safety Month

                Defensive Driving Class – no longer available

Looking forward to visiting Meadow Outdoor in a couple of weeks

Preparing for a private Qualified Climber class in Chicago

Memorial Day/National Wine Day/World Football Day

Safety Humor

Mail and Comments thebillboardsafetyguy@gmail.com

Announcements and In the News

DOT Annual ‘Road check’ to focus on ELD tampering and cargo securement

OSHA reveals final ‘Top 10’ data for FY 2025

PPE group warns against ‘outlandish’ online claims about safety footwear

OSHA launches ‘safety shout-out’ challenge

FACE Report: Framer struck by wall, falls through opening

Interesting numbers from “The Hustle” newsletter

Data Center Concerns

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Welcome to this episode of the Billboard Safety Guy. I am Jim Pogue, the Billboard Safety Guy, coming to you today. I uh asked for some background music that was uh somewhat cheesy and kind of like uh Leon Phelps, the ladies' man, and uh this is what AI gave me. Can't say I'm totally unhappy with it, it's just uh a little bit different than what I had envisioned. Okay, we'll take that down a little bit. I uh apologize, I did not realize until I started this today how long it had been since my last recording, uh my last podcast. I um had to go back and look and I see where it was almost three weeks ago. So I'm my goal has always been to be at least every other week, so I'm a little caught off guard by that, but we'll try and make it up as we go. Um, I hope everyone had a uh safe time since uh last time that we had our talk here. I have had a great time so far this summer. Things are starting out well, except for the humidity. That's one thing coming from Arizona to South Carolina, it's very hard to get used to is the humidity here. But I talked to some people who have lived here their whole lives, and they say that you never get used to it. So anyway, that's something to look forward to. As usual, we want to thank our sponsor, Fermetco, everything outdoor. Uh, if you're thinking of getting into the billboard market or you're a season pro already out there and you're looking for something special, be sure and get in touch with Vermetco. They're more than happy to help you with everything from nuts and bolts to building the structure to putting the ad copy up to installing a digital and helping even selling it. So if you are looking for some advice, give them a call. I also want to spend a minute to thank all the friends and family out there that listened to the show. It really does mean a lot. I got back on the stats since uh last time we were on. I looked at the uh Buzz Sprout, who happens to be my sponsor or my uh supporter, the one that actually posts the podcast for me in the various locations that you pick it up from. And I've picked up more countries uh around the world. I don't know if that's good or bad. I think it's great. Everyone seems to have an interest in safety, so that's a plus. So if you're a new listener, I welcome you very much. Big thanks. Big thanks to my remote engineer Chuck, who still has his Learn a Note program out there. If you're interested in learning where to pick notes on a keyboard, this is a great program. Take a look at it in one of the app stores that there are out there. We're still planning an online climber class, the classroom portion of the certification that we do on June 4th. If that changes, I will definitely let everyone know. I've had a number of people asking me about it. Looking forward to doing our first one that is officially uh listed as an online class. We've done them before. I've done them through Teams, and it's just uh changing a little bit of the language and what we're doing, but it's still going to be a good classroom. Look forward to everybody that's gonna be involved in that. OSHA 10 and 30-hour courses, those are still available. Um let's see. We, I say we, like I'm my pronoun is something other than Jim, you know. I am going to be dropping the defensive driving classes that I was doing. I haven't had too much of a demand for them. And National Safety Council is changing some of the requirements. And it's it's not anything bad, it's it's a good thing. It's just I am at the point where I'm kind of slowing down and I'm picking the classes that I um want to teach. And I it wouldn't be doing a good service if I taught this and I wasn't truly certified with them. So I'm going to back away and let National Safety Council handle these or one of their other representatives. So if you have an interest in defensive driving classes, definitely give the National Safety Council a call. It's one of those things, not only does it benefit businesses and people that drive in the course and scope of their business, but it also helps with your personal insurance. Most insurance companies will give you a 5% reduction in rate for taking a defensive driving course. So check that out if you're in need of cutting back on some of your cost. Um, I do have a big trip coming up in June. I am looking so forward to. I'm gonna get to go visit my folk for my folks that I know um at the Dales in Oregon, Meadow Outdoor. Gonna spend a week there with them. Looking so forward to that. Uh, great people. All the folks that have attended my class have been phenomenal. I know uh Chris and Judy and Mike Zukin and all those guys. It's gonna be a great time there. We're gonna get to put on some interesting training topics. I'm just gonna say that because they're a little different from what you see in the classroom, but that's gonna be fun. I am doing a private uh qualified climber class for a company in Chicago. Since they're new to me, I'm not gonna say their name because I don't know how they would feel about that. But looking forward to spending a couple of days there. And uh yeah, I think we've got everybody welcomed and we're on board and we're ready to roll. I uh I keep getting a lot of positive response from people that say, you know, it's great that you give us these little tidbits of information about things or jokes or something at the beginning. We find that a great way to segue into some of the other things you're talking about. So I'm going to start out with um things associated with Memorial Day. So if you're listening to this after Memorial Day, this is being recorded a week or so before. So I think it's appropriate to uh talk about some of the things that uh you may or may not know about Memorial Day. So let's get into this. Uh the first Memorial Day took place on May 30th, 1868, and it was James A. Garfield, an Ohio congressman who would later become the 20th American president that gave a speech honoring fallen Civil War soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. Afterwards, thousands of people decorated the graves of the falling. The date was selected so that the spring flowers would be in full bloom for this holiday. And let's see, John A. Logan is considered the founder of Memorial Day. Logan served as a Union Army general during the Civil War and later resumed a career in politics as head of the Grand Army of the Republic, a volunteer organization for Civil War veterans. Logan called for a National Day of Remembrance for fallen Civil War soldiers in 1868. This occasion became the basis for the Memorial Day holiday as we have it now. Flags should be flown at half-staff from sunrise until noon on Memorial Day. It's kind of odd. I would think you would do it for the full day, but umly till sunset, it says. Memorial Day was officially recognized as a federal holiday in 1971, which kind of blows me away. I thought it was uh recognized going back even further than that. Every memorial day there is a wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and Memorial Day was created to honor fallen soldiers from the Civil War. Let's see. Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day. Waterloo, New York is the official birthplace of Memorial Day, and many people wear poppies on the Friday before Memorial Day. Uh let's see. It doesn't say much about the poppies, but they have come to symbolize remembrance of the fallen since World War One. And uh there is a national moment of silence at 3 PM on Memorial Day. Uh it's a time for prayer and reflection, it says, as stated by the Clinton administration. The purpose of the national moment of remembrance is to honor fallen soldiers and remind citizens of true meaning of Memorial Day. Interesting. And several organizations have promoted the practice of playing taps, a traditional military bugle call that signals the end of the day during the moment of silence. Huh. I didn't I missed that on the first read of it, so I even learned something today myself. Okay. So um, moving on, I got a somewhat nasty message from my youngest daughter of all people about the jokes that I was doing. She said, How dare you do these? And you have the uh dad joke 3000, which is this button she got me for my birthday that you hit, and it tells you a dad joke each time. Um, but I had some that I had in an old file that I had labeled as safety humor. So I apologize. And I I will say, I'm sorry, Sarah, but there there were dad jokes before they were called dad jokes. So these are some of the ones that I uh was pondering. I'll I'll share a few of them with you. Um why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injection? That's that's a good question. And why is abbreviation such a long word? Now, now that's one worth thinking about. Why would you do that? Uh why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets? Well, now that one I can kind of say, yes, I understand the question and the confusion, but there's also some legitimacy to that because the helmets had headsets in them so that you could communicate by radio. So there is some justification, and it's not just for safety that they wore helmets. Um how do you know when it's time to tune your bagpipes? Very good question. And one more for today. Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny? All right, so that's enough of those out of the way. And let's move on to I had a very interesting thing happen. I uh I've had concerns, let me just say that. Um people in my family have had dementia, uh, more than one person. And so I had talked to my doctor, and I've been going through some testing, not nothing to be alarmed about, but just one of those things where um if I do have some onset of it, there's a number of things that they can do to slow it down or delay it, and it's best if it's caught early on. And one of them was a test that I had to do with a person that read questions and waited for me to give a verbal answer. And after just a few minutes of talking, uh the girl said, Do you mind if I tell you something completely off record? I said, No, what is it? Um am I doing something wrong? Or and she said, No, you have the most perfect voice. If you were doing radio or announcing or something like that, I would love to listen to you talk and I'll your inflection and everything. And I said, Well, guess what? I happen to do a podcast. And she laughed and said, Well, you should be doing a podcast. So, anyway, that was a very high compliment that I got, and I thought that was very nice. Um okay, let's move on. There was really nothing I needed to address in email. Everybody seems like they're starting to take the summer off. I see where a lot of people are listening in uh lots of the downloads, like they're binge listening, so to speak. Um, here's something I found interesting, and it actually was from a newsletter that I get that is uh from Money Magazine. And if you remember in the last uh podcast that I did, pardon me, I was talking about uh some of the trichloroethine uh chemicals that are household chemicals that needed to be regulated or replaced or something done to protect people. And uh in their newsletter, they were talking about how it says this common chemical is now linked to potentially fatal liver disease, especially for higher income households. And the interesting thing is it's the same thing we were talking about during the last podcast, and they're referring to it as PCEs. I believe I referred to it as TECs, but they're both the same thing of the same family. And they're saying that a number of people are coming back from doctor evaluations with diagnosis of liver disease similar to alcohol use, and they're saying we we don't drink, there's no way, and what they're finding is PCEs, which are in dry cleaning fluid, are causing these people to experience liver damage. So this is one of those things I think we really need to look into. Uh, this the chemicals used for dry cleaning have been found to cause liver fibrosis or cirrhosis of the liver. So these are things that we do to ourselves. And it's funny, not funny haha, but funny ironic, that the people that are most affected are higher income households because they can afford to do dry cleaning more frequently on more of their clothes. So just uh it makes me glad that uh this type of risk and issue is being recognized and it's being brought forward. It's sad it's taken us this long to do something about it. Pardon me. Um, one thing I missed that has come and gone is each year now, DOT has begun to do uh road checks, pulling trucks over and checking to see if their electronic logging device or ELD has been tampered with or if the cargo securement is proper for the vehicle. And in this edition of Safety and Health magazine, there's an article titled Annual Road Check to focus on ELD tampering and carbon and cargo securement, and it was done from May 12th to the 14th across the U.S. And they looked at things like braking systems, lights, tires, and other components on commercial trucks and buses that could be tampered with or not working properly. And it's one of those things they're finding so many people who are major truck drivers that are trying to defeat the hours of driving log so they can drive longer, which puts everybody at risk on the road. It says right here, last year's event resulted in more than 59,000, I'm sorry, 56,000 inspections, with 18.1% of vehicles and nine five point nine percent of drivers placed out of service, meaning they violated something during this inspection that warranted them being pulled off the road. So I think that's good that DOT is doing this to make sure that everybody is in compliance and it's safer out on the road. But also it's like, what does that say about the motivation with these drivers to get out and try and get somewhere uh by extending their driving time or something that could could put somebody who's a an impaired driver due to fatigue out on the road? All right. So uh another noteworthy thing in safety and health from National Safety Council that I uh happen to be looking at that I was like, yay, as a safety professional or retired safety professional. OSHA finally finalized their top 10 data for 2025, which is kind of astronomical. We used to have to run with data that was two and three years behind whenever I was first getting into the field. And now, with some of their changes, they're getting within the current year before mid-year even comes up. So that's a great thing. Now, what were the top 10 that made the list? And this is everything. So you're gonna have construction standards, general industry standards, everything rolled into one, even the record keeping data. So, number one, which should surprise no one, is fall protection. Uh, general industry, or wait a minute, I'm sorry, it was a construction standard, 1926-501, and it had 6,992 violations. Hazard communication, which was also, well, I say also, I'm getting kind of mixed up on my own data here. Uh, hazard communication, which was a general industry standard, the 1910-1200, had a little over 3,000. Ladders, they issued citations under the construction standard, 1926-1053, and there were close to 3,000 citations for that. Lockout tagout, the general industry or 1910-147 standard had roughly 2,500 citations. Respiratory protection, also a 1910 standard, had a little over 2,000, 20, 2300 nearly uh citations, scaffolding, which was a construction standard, 1926 uh.451 had 2,286. Now then, this is interesting, number seven out of their top 10 ball protection training requirements. That was issued under 1926, the construction standards, and they had 2,216 of those citations that went out. Training is abundant. You can get training everywhere. So it's kind of sad that some of these people were not trained sufficiently to meet the requirements. Powered industrial trucks or forklifts, as we like to call them, under the general industry standard 1910 178, had 2,150 personal. Protective and life-saving equipment, specifically iron face protection. And you would think it would be in the general industry category, but it's actually under construction. 1926-102 had 1965 citations, and the last one, machine guarding. And where I would think that would be construction, it was actually general industry. It was 1910-212, and they had almost 1,500 citations for machine guarding. That's pretty sad. So that's good numbers to have if you want to do uh PowerPoint or use uh some of this information. If you go back to Safety and Health magazine, um, they definitely can give you the detail on these numbers that you could include in any presentation you need to do. Um, another article, Safety and Health magazine, that was pretty interesting. Um this PPE group warns against outlandish online claims about safety footwear. And it shows an ad from this company that says 79% of safety footwear failed test. And they're saying, you know, be very leery of all safety equipment that you buy online. That I think I talked about last time also with some respirators that were sold online that were deficient or didn't work. I think that we have gotten too in too used to taking and just clicking a button on Amazon and having whatever we wanted that we tend to trust people when they say this is the best and the number one thing that you need to have because everything else is inferior. Um, maybe not. Maybe shopping live in some cases would actually be better, or at least doing some research and knowing for sure that what they're saying is true. So I found that interesting that they're calling out some of these online dealers that are out there. Okay. Now then, uh also in this episode the episode, in this issue of Safety and Health magazine, OSHA is launching what they call a safety shout out challenge. Now, it seems kind of funny whenever I read through this, and it says a new challenge from OSHA encourages peer-to-peer recognition of safe work practices. Part of the annual safe and sound campaign promoted by OSHA, NIOSH, and the National Safety Council and other safety organizations. The Safety Shout Out Challenge is a way to provide immediate recognition, make workers more aware of their daily safety actions, and help reinforce teamwork and collaboration, OSHA says. Peer-to-peer recognition also can foster informal safety conversations and learning between workers and the agency. Now, here's what's kind of interesting. OSHA is going to offer printable shout-out cards if you go to the OSHA's Safe and Sound web page. And employers can distribute them and ask employees to highlight coworkers' safe work in areas including reporting a near-miss, close calls, or potential hazard, improving safety and health practices, conducting thorough safety inspections, modeling safety or modeling safe work practices, helping others work safely, and completing non-mandatory training. OSHA asks participants to highlight their recognition on social media using the hashtag safety shout out and safe and sound at work. Anyone who complies anyone who completes the challenge can download a virtual challenge coin. Now I I think the the thought behind this is great. And I think the desire for the outcome is admirable. However, I can see where a lot of employees would make up their own card with their own comments that might not be quite as safety-oriented, that might be more um humor-related. I'm trying to think of a PC way of putting it. Because I know that if I was an employee and I was looking to joke around with someone, I would probably come up with my own cards and figure out a way to blend them in with these so that, you know, uh pointing out this guy is a jerk whenever he's, you know, done something like this or you know, one or the other. So anyway, I hope people follow through with it. I can see a lot of latitude here for things that may not be quite appropriate, let's say, in the workplace. So now there is uh an article that was also in safety and health that kind of it's sad and it kind of shocked me a little bit. And it's a a face report, a fatality report. And we've talked about these in the past before. And this face report where they had people actually doing a an investigation were where was where a framer was struck by a wall that fell and caused him to fall through an opening that was like, let's see, I think it was 14 feet, uh, something like that. But anyway, let me read part of this story to you. A 73-year-old framer had worked for his employer, a residential framing contractor, for eight years. On the day of the incident, he was part of an experienced six-worker crew raising an external wall framed, external wood-framed wall, sorry, that was around 14 feet high and weighed approximately 2,100 pounds. The workers were raising the wall from a concrete slab floor over a basement using two portable iron wall jacks installed on two 12-foot-high 2x4 lumber posts. The jacks were under the wall's top plate and the posts were standing straight up and unsecured to the floor. The plan was to manually ratchet the jacks up the post to lift the wall into place. After the crew began to lift, members attached a pair of 2x4 lumber push sticks to a window cutout in the upper part of the wall. The framer was pushing the stick on the right side of the cutout when the wall reached a 70-degree angle of tilt. The crew attached wood braces to the post to support the jack higher up. The crew then finished raising the wall into its fully vertical position. Once the wall was up, the wall jack posts were freestanding. Before the wall could be secured, a brace on the right gave way. The wall collapsed and struck the framer in the back of the head. The impact caused him to fall through an unguarded floor opening beside him. He fell eight feet, only eight feet, to the concrete floor below. His coworkers called 911 and performed CPR until first responders arrived. The worker was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators found that the floor opening had been uncovered by the wall before it was raised. The crew members stated that they did not have enough lumber to cover the opening as they usually did. The employer did not ensure workers used a guardrail, cover, or other fall protection system to prevent falling through the opening. Now then, tragic. This is a horrible thing. Horrible way to go, horrible thing to happen. But let's back up a bit. And let's read the first five words of this again. A 73-year-old framer, that right there should be a red flag, I would think. Now I know, I know, I'm 67, or as my grandkids like say, 6'7, 6'7. And there are 73-year-olds that are in phenomenal shape, but we don't know that. And he has worked there for eight years? That means since he was 65. So he is in a very physical occupation, and it makes me wonder: has anyone ever really reviewed whether this guy was physically capable of doing some of the work that he's being asked to do? At his age, it would be probably more often than not that he is going to not be able to perform as physically well as someone who is in their 40s or 30s or 20s. So I think this could be a contributing factor that they didn't even address. And then he was hit by a wall that weighed 2,100 pounds. Why were there no safeguards there to prevent it from falling? And then on top of that, he fell eight feet. And most people go, oh, eight feet, I jump off a house and I don't get hurt. You know, there's a reason that OSHA standards say fall protection at four feet or greater are in other industries different heights. I'm not going to get into that debate now, but it's one of those things where their answer to this, whoever did this investigation was, develop policies that require workers to manually support and secure walls after raising and install and secure cover before working around openings. Create a restricted access zone. And these are these are great. These are reactive. Proactive would have been to make sure that there was a program to do all of this before it happened, but also maybe do an evaluation of the workers performing this type of job and and do a job hazard assessment to make sure that somebody that's a professional safety person could recognize these hazards before they kill somebody. So that was just one of those things that struck me. And I I no pun intended, but just caught me as being very unusual that there were only two bullet points to this that they recommended for correction. So okay. Now then I've got a something new to kind of wrap up with. So make it a safe one. Thank you for listening, and I look forward to talking to you again in the future. Have a safe day.