Cory Sherman, Founder of Safety Systems Management, shares Choate Construction’s safety revolution
When it comes to safety on construction sites, seconds matter, especially when those seconds could mean the difference between a quick evacuation and chaos. For Choate Construction, one of the largest general contractors in the Southeast, that reality hit home not through a specific accident or emergency event, but through a dawning realization: the company’s traditional emergency alert methods simply weren’t good enough.
Javier Pabon, Safety Director for Choate’s Savannah, Georgia business unit, oversees environmental health and safety across all seven of the company’s offices. His mission, he says, is to make sure every worker on every site can be warned instantly when danger arises. “Of course, like every construction company, we’ve had incidents on our job sites,” Pabon says. “But as a whole, what catalyzed the need to start looking at other safety systems was just a clear and urgent need to notify our workers faster and more efficiently.”
At the time, Choate relied on a method that’s as old-fashioned as it is unreliable yet still very much in use in the industry: air horns.
“It’s standard practice to use air horns to notify employees,” Pabon explains. “But you can blow as many air horns as you want: when you’re on the fifth story of a residential high-rise, opposite the job trailer, and sheetrock and windows are going up, it’s going to be pretty hard to hear that air horn.”
Even if workers did hear the sound, they had no way of knowing what it meant. “It could be an active shooter. It could be a tornado coming,” he says. “I didn’t feel comfortable that we had a good plan in place.”
Finding a better way
Pabon raised the issue during a safety call several years ago. “I had brought this up on a call years ago, and someone referred me to Safety Systems Management (SSM) as a viable option,” he recalls. “I did some homework, invited them in, and that’s how we started working together.”
About five and a half years ago, SSM visited one of Choate’s large multifamily residential projects in Savannah to assess the site’s layout, power sources, and alert needs. The company recommended a wireless emergency alert system consisting of multiple call stations and repeaters. Choate rented 11 stations for the six-story build, enough to provide full coverage across the project’s various floors and wings. Since then, Choate has rented systems directly from SSM on a per-project basis. “We talked about purchasing them a while back,” Pabon says, “but we no longer purchase, store, or house any physical equipment. We outsource it all.”
Choate uses the systems primarily on wood-frame construction projects, where fire risk is greatest. “The spread of fire is very rapid, and you’re always around consumables,” he notes. “If a fire were to start, it would spread quickly.”
The number of stations varies from project to project. “One project could employ 11 stations, while another could have just four or five. It depends on how many floors you have and how the building is laid out,” Pabon says. “You might have a C-shaped building or a courtyard where you need two on a floor. Or you might have two separate residential buildings under construction at the same time.”
Choate first implemented the system in April 2020, and the results were immediate. “It was a really solid combination of high-level technology with a low level of installation or maintenance to get it going,” Pabon says. “Actually, it’s little to none. Outside of the initial orientation, there’s no continual maintenance. If there is something wrong, we just pick up the phone, and it gets fixed.”
Practical, mobile, and reliable
The system’s simplicity and mobility have been two of the most attractive features. Pabon says the setup requires no special wiring, no permanent fixtures, and very little training. “One thing I really like is its mobility; it weighs just 42 pounds. It’s not fixed; it’s a standalone item. We can have it moved from one location to another in no time.”
While the SSM systems have not yet been pressed into service for an actual life-threatening event, it has become an everyday part of the company’s safety culture. “Thankfully, there have been no specific emergency events to test the system,” Pabon says. “However, we use them quite often for proactive safety measures, like anytime lightning strikes are within ten miles, or whenever we clear the building at the end of the day. We also use it for all our safety stand downs, evacuation drills, and general announcements. This means the same system that could one day save lives also enhances daily communication.”
The system’s central command station allows site leaders to broadcast recorded or live messages across the job site, whether it’s an evacuation alert, a safety reminder, or a weather warning. “We use the systems for any general messaging that we have to get out to all employees,” Pabon says. “It does things automatically that take a lot of burden off the construction site managers so they can focus on the project.”
For Choate, the biggest measurable benefit has been speed. While he doesn’t have exact numbers, Pabon states that the evacuation time has been cut dramatically. That saving can be the difference between a safe evacuation and a tragic one. Just as important, the system keeps people out of harm’s way during emergencies. “Before, we’d have two or three staff running around with air horns, clearing buildings themselves. That meant they physically had to go into a building where there’s a clear and present danger. We don’t have to do that anymore.”
The system’s high-decibel sound and flashing light indicators ensure that even workers wearing headphones or those who are hearing impaired receive the alert. “Once the alarm goes off, even for those who are hearing impaired, they know there’s an emergency based on the flashing of the light and visual indicators,” Pabon says.
Positive feedback across the board
Visitors and inspectors are frequently impressed. “A lot of people have noticed the systems, especially the ones that are caught off guard by them,” Pabon notes. “Usually, it’s visitors. They’ll hear us shut down the job site or give a message and say, ‘Wow, this is something we don’t see very often.’ We’ve even had the fire department comment on the fact that this is such a useful tool.”
Tactical rescue teams that tour Choate’s sites have echoed that sentiment. “They’d love to see this on every single job,” Pabon says. “That way, when they’re risking their lives entering a building that could be on fire or experiencing another emergency, they don’t have to go in looking for people; they can go straight to assessing the danger.”
For Choate Construction, implementing SSM’s wireless emergency alert systems has done more than replace air horns; it’s created a new safety standard that protects workers, saves time, and gives project teams peace of mind. “It’s proactive, simple, and effective,” Pabon concludes. “When seconds count, you want a safety system you can depend on. For us, this is it.”
www.safetysystemsmanagement.com
Safety Systems Management offers safety systems to companies looking to keep themselves and their employees safe, specializing in wireless emergency notification systems. SSM has developed a mobile platform for the use of its wireless emergency notification and communication system. The company’s construction site safety consulting provides a valuable resource and tool for the future of its customers and the safety of their employees.