ST. MARYS, W.Va. — Thursday marks the 45th anniversary of one of West Virginia’s darkest days and one of the most horrific construction accidents in United States history.
On April 27, 1978, 51 men climbed the scaffolding of their workplace to continue the upward construction of a cooling tower at the Willow Island Power Station in Pleasants County. However, around 10 a.m. the massive tangle of scaffolding, which was connected to the inside walls of the tower itself, pulled loose and the entire structure crashed to the ground. All 51 men on the scaffold were killed.
Eula Bingham was the head of OSHA at the time and recalled being asked by President Jimmy Carter days after visiting the site to tell him about it.
“We were standing by a desk and he said, ‘I want to know what happened at Willow Island.’ I started to describe it and he said, ‘It was green concrete wasn’t it.’ I said, ‘Yes Mr. President it was,” Bingham recalled in a 2016 interview for the Center for Construction and Research Training about her career in occupational safety.
The contractor building the tower was under mounting pressure to speed construction. A new lift of concrete was being added every day on the site and the scaffolding was climbing upward and attached to structure’s walls. However, the concrete was not being given adequate time to cure. Investigators say weather conditions significantly weakened the structure.
“They had not tested the concrete. It’s a little thing, but that was a warm spring and it rained a lot. This tower, the concrete layers just collapsed,” said Bingham in the interview.
Bingham, who died in 2020, recalled arriving at the scene of the disaster on the day it happened. She said family members were all inside a tiny building on the property awaiting word from investigators and state officials. It was a scene which haunted her for the rest of her life.
“There were mostly old men and young women, middle aged women, older women, and children sitting there. They looked at me with glazed eyes. I was so taken with this that even today I want to cry when I think about it,” she said.
The contractor was using a new technique for building the tower and was so secretive about it they didn’t even keep the blueprints for the building on site for fear the new technique would be stolen.
The project was halted for a long period of time, but eventually resumed. For many years afterward a distinct line could be seen in the cooling tower which marked the exact spot in construction the tragedy had occurred. The line was a reminder to everyone in the community about the horrible day. Eventually a monument was erected within site of the towers which included the names of all 51 who were killed in the tragedy.