Edgerton school's wall falls, kills teen worker

Firefighters survey the scene of a buliding collapse at Ohio Fresh Eggs in central Ohio, where two people were killed Wednesday. JAY LAPRETE / AP Enlarge

EDGERTON, Ohio — The construction worker killed Wednesday when a high wind blew over a recently built concrete wall has been identified as Keith J. LaFountain, 18, according to Dr. Kevin Park, the Williams County coroner.

Dr. Park said the cause of death was injuries from blunt-force trauma. He declined to release the victim's Ohio home town.

The accident, which occurred on a site that is part of the expansion of Edgerton High School, wasn't the only deadly construction accident ascribed to strong winds in Ohio Wednesday.

Winds reaching 70 mph knocked over three barns at Ohio's largest egg farm in the central portion of the state, killing two construction workers, authorities said.

In the Edgerton accident, winds up to 47 mph were recorded in Williams County before noon Wednesday, said John Taylor, lead forecaster at the National Weather Service in Syracuse, Ind.

It is unusual, but not impossible, for winds of that speed to cause such damage to buildings. Typically, it takes winds upward of 60 mph to knock down walls, Mr. Taylor said. With the building under construction and most doorways wide open, he added, “sometimes the wind can get in there and do strange things.”

Workplace safety officials were investigating at the scene, a spokesman for the Toledo office of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said.

The strong winds rolled in just before the 10-foot wall collapsed about 11:25 a.m., Edgerton Fire Chief Scott Blue said.

“It was an instantaneous blow. It got real black to the west,” Chief Blue said. “With the blink of an eye, the tones were off.”

The construction at Edgerton High School will expand the building to include new classrooms for kindergarten through eighth grade, Chief Blue said.

The first of three special weather statements regarding a severe thunderstorm watch with winds up to 50 miles per hour was issued about 10:20 a.m. Wednesday.

A severe thunderstorm watch — not a warning — was also in effect at the time of the wall collapse, Mr. Taylor said.

A line of thunderstorms caused “sporadic damage” by downing trees and utility poles in northern Indiana, Ohio and southeast Michigan. No other injuries were reported.

The egg farm workers who were killed were laying concrete blocks in a barn at Ohio Fresh Eggs near Croton, in Licking County, said Bill Schwaderer, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Three others escaped with minor injuries.

Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp blamed the collapsed barns on high winds. The National Weather Service said the area, about 25 miles northeast of Columbus, was hit by a line of strong thunderstorms with winds estimated at 60 to 70 mph.

In June, Edgerton's historic former town hall was destroyed when winds of up to 100 mph rolled through this community about 65 miles southwest of Toledo in Williams County.

The National Weather Service said the culprit then was a “microburst,” not a tornado. A microburst is a locally intense area of wind and precipitation within a thunderstorm.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Contact Bridget Tharp at: btharp@theblade.com or 419-724-6086.