Stay in Houston

Stay in Houston

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On Monday, March 4th, it was really cold out (in the 20's again) and I was the only one at Labor Ready at 5AM (though Angie opened promptly at 5AM). I got an assignment with General Stevedores unloading barges with rolls of steel (they call them coils). It is a nice assigment at $6 an hour and moderate overtime and they seem happy with me, so I may be here a while. In this picture you can see an empty barge on the left with the large front loader next to it. They use the front loader to pull the covers from one end of the barge to another (they alternate high and low and slip past each other if the latches are open) as well as moving the barge sometimes. To the right of the barge is the crane which unloads the coils (or rolls) and some coils of steel (one galvanized and wrapped in paper and the others unwrapped and uncoated).
Across Buffalo Bayou from us is a refinery of some sort. This is the view I regularly see of it. The barges are much lower the water when they come in (by about eight feet). I have been mostly working on the dock helping to aline the steel roll when it comes down so that the fork lift can pick it up. The rolls are three to six feet high and have an opening about two feet wide in the center. They mostly weigh from 8,000 to 60,000 pounds depending on what kind of steel it is. Needless to say, I stay out of the way and get mostly isometric exercise (lots of pushing with little movement) as I just get it to spinning and then let the operator drop it when the center is aligned where the forklift can get at it.
This is the warehouse where they keep the paper wrapped steel (actually wrapped in nylon tarp material) so it doesn't get wet. Outside are unwrapped steel coils which can get rained on. I also do miscellaneous other tasks that need doing like marking the coils as directed, connecting the cable to the front loader, putting the connector on to the hook for the crane, .... The crane has a hook that rotates easily at the end of a series of pulleys (actually two with different pulley's). The rolls are loaded on a C shaped (but with right angles rather than any bend) attachment which probably weights up to 4,000 pounds itself. At the center of the top of these attachments (there are about six of different sizes and such) is a steel loop that often weighs about 50 pounds. I just lift it onto (and off) the hook of the crane. There are two guys in the barge when we are working who help guide the C hook through the center of the roll to picked up.
Here is the area where they keep the attachments for the crane. The closest C hook is the one used for coils of over 40,000 pounds. I would guess it weighs about 2,000 pounds itself. All the workers are quite safety conscious (with good reason) as is the company. To the right of the heavy duty C hook is the man cage. We are not allowed to ride over to the barge and back (or anywhere else) via the crane unless we are in the man cage. I had to sign a paper saying I had read their safety rules and would abide by them before I started and that was one of the rules. However, I have seen people riding C hooks on occassion, so I imagine that that is considered one of the needless safety rules. To the left and rear of the heavy duty C hook is a caddy which can pick up two smaller coils at the one time.
Behind the area for crane hooks is where we store lumber we retrieve from the barges. This is unfinished lumber which was used underneath the coils and to chock them (keep them from rolling). This lumber is then moved to the other warehouses such as the one which loads the coils onto rail cards and needs the lumbers for the same purpose there. We will stack the rails on a forklift and then band it with steel bands when we have an hour or so and no barge to unload. We also have a bucket of diesel (left rear) and 55 gallon drum for fires on cold days when we are waiting for work to do.
Here is one of the heavy duty forklifts with a single attachment for picking up one large coil. When we are stacking lunber, it would have the more traditional two flat ends for us to put lumber on. For lighter (10,000 pounds) coils they would put round covers over the ends and use it to pick up two coils at a time.
Here is a barge with its lid closed. We hook a cable to one of the sections and start pulling it to one end with the front loader. The taller/larger sections have wheels on the outside of the track and go over the lower/smaller sections which have wheels on the inside of the track. That will open up half the barge. Then we pull the sections to the other end to empty the other half.
Here is what the inside of a barge looks when the covers are off and it has unwrapped steel. These coils tend to be larger and heavier and so there are less per barge. Probably only about 50 to 60 per barge.