Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Well today I was in my element utilising my military skills and my search advisor knowledge!  It involved 5 police cars, 3 fire engines, an ambulance, the evacuation of the site, closure of Battersea Heliport and all train lines coming from Victoria.  At around 1430 Hrs one of the engineers came up to the office saying that the piling rig had dug something up that could be UXO.  Being the only person that vaguely knew one end of a bomb from the other I agreed to go and give my expert guestimate of whether we should be running for cover.

On arriving at the piling rig I found this:

It was around 150mm diameter all the way down with no tail fins or pointy ends so I was 90% sure it wasn’t going to start ticking at us.  I took some photos to brief the services and then cleared my area of responsibility of operatives.  As the site was getting evacuated I found the piling rig operators and used the search advisor questioning technique to find out what they were doing when they found it and what actually happened.  The rig was drilling the pre-bore for the casing when it hit a metal obstruction about 1.5m BGL.  On moving the auger forwards and up, it uncovered the metal object that started hissing.  At that point the rig crew stopped work and promptly left the area to raise the concern.  We got the site evacuated and after around 45 minutes 4 police cars turned up.

I ended up briefing the police and showing the photos with the senior construction manager and an ex-RE policeman went down to have a look.  He confirmed our suspicions that is was more likely to be an oxygen or acetylene cylinder and the police decided to establish a 400m cordon.  With the train lines around 30m away and the cylinder pointing straight at them and the flats the other side of them-all the trains from Victoria were cancelled and the flats started to be evacuated.  Finally the fire brigade turned up and I had my briefing map and photos ready.  It reminded me of the old 4Cs operation we got taught on PDT for Iraq.  After seeing the photos they reduced the exclusion zone to 200m and they sent some guys with breathing apparatus to go and check it out despite the fact we had been stood next to it over an hour before!

To cut a long story short, they confirmed what we had told them and went with the construction manager’s plan of attaching some strops to it to support it and reversing the auger to lift it from the hole.  Low and behold it worked without going bang and everyone went home for tea and medals and the trains set off again. 

Here’s the culprit:

 We are not sure exactly where it came from but it looks like it was between our pile mat and another piece of terram.  It may have been buried during the backfilling of a previous dig or development prior to us being on site.  It is likely to throw up a whole world of debate about whether excavation and piling on the site is safe as if they had struck the cylinder straight on it could have exploded.  It will also be interesting to see whether the client ends up footing a bill for the closure of the railway line or whether incidents like this outside our control are excluded.  One thing I will be implementing on site is a proper laminated briefing map and some advice on how to control incidents.  I was amazed with how many people rushed to take the afternoon off, leaving a couple of people to deal with everything.  Even the police and fire brigade didn’t really seem to take command and control as I would have expected them to do.  I am more institutionalised than I thought!

Early in my in my attachment volunteered to take part in a charity cycle ride from London to Paris, of course wanting to prove my physical prowess I instantly said yes with little knowledge of really how far it was or what the charity did. The weekend just gone was the date set for the cycle ride and I’m pleased to say the team of carefully selected office athletes set of from outside of Liverpool street station on Friday morning and arrived under the Eiffel tower late Sunday afternoon. Having now completed the cycle ride and having hounded others within the office for sponsorship I thought I better really understand what it was i raised money for, i knew it was for third world development but what was the money actually for…
The charity is called Engineers For Overseas Development (EFOD) and is a voluntary organisation that aims to enhances the training of young professionals by challenging them to deliver development projects overseas. Over the last 13 years EFOD have delivered a diverse number of projects to communities in central Africa (Uganda, Zambia and Ghana) .
Examples of past projects include:
• A medical waste incinerator at Kumi Hospital, Uganda (EFOD North-West);
• The design and construction of a footbridge over the Kanakantapa river in Zambia (EFOD Wales);
• The Sewing School in Kpone Saduasi, Ghana (EFOD South-West); and
• A community centre for a women’s co-operative farming group in Koutulai, Uganda (EFOD West Midlands).

Designed and Completed Incinerator, Kumi Hospital
This year’s project is the improvement of infrastructure critical to the running of a hospital in Kuma, Uganda. The scope of the project for 2014 is; to improve the water pump, currently a broken diesel pump, to improve supply to the hospital, construction of more sustainable and hygienic latrines, improving the laundry facilities within the hospital.
The projects looks to utilise and practice junior engineers in applying engineering principles to design both structures and M&E services. The junior engineers are also responsible for the commercial process and al other aspects of managing the project from concept through to final handover. While not all the engineers will travel to Uganda all will contribute to the project. Having had a little experience of delivering engineering projects within Kenya and Afghanistan i was asked if I might be able to assist by means of reviewing projects and imparting any advice to the junior engineers on project managing such a project.
During the two short periods that I attended with the EFOD engineers and during the review of their initial designs and concepts the key themes that I feel I helped to develop area as follows:
Sustainable – considering environmental impacts, future community needs, and the longevity of the design
Buildable – with local resources, taking into account local knowledge, available expertise and skill levels
Maintainable – using a maintenance scheme appropriate to local skills, which are strengthened through EFOD provided training
Affordable – delivering required outcomes with the funds raised
Ground reality – H&S regs will not be to the UK standards and would be very hard to enforce, therefore work with what is acceptable risk and implement measures where possible.