Why were two men lost? Officials want answers

State investigators began weighing Friday how much a Hugo company's actions contributed to the apparent drowning of two workers during a sudden downpour that left them trapped in the labyrinth of storm sewers deep below St. Paul's streets.

City Council members called for a review of the city's sewer safety procedures to see what can be learned from the death of Dave Yasis, 23, of Maplewood, and the apparent death of Joe Harlow, 34, of Plainview, Minn.

"St. Paul is not the only city in America that has sewers," Council President Kathy Lantry said. "There is a nationwide lesson to be learned from our tragedy."

Ramsey County sheriff's deputies found the body of Yasis about 6 p.m. Friday near where the storm sewers spill into the Mississippi River, Cmdr. Joe Paget said.

The sheriff's water patrol will resume searching for Harlow about 7 a.m. today.

Police boats and barge-tug vessels spent the day searching for the men under the Wabasha Street Bridge in downtown St. Paul, where much of the 450 miles of the city storm sewers empty into the Mississippi River.

Investigators from the state Occupational Safety and Health Division, sometimes referred to as Minnesota OSHA, opened their case, checking the training and evacuation procedures of Lametti & Sons. The Hugo company is one of the area's most experienced sewer contractors and built the stretch of storm sewers where the workers were trapped.

Lametti officials waited nearly four hours -- from the storm's torrential start about 3 p.m. Thursday until after 7 p.m. -- and conducted their own search before calling 911. Investigators will look into that matter.

"It would have been nice to get the call sooner," St. Paul Fire Chief John Morrison said.

Lametti spokesman Arnold Kraft said safety procedures should have allowed the men to escape.

"Elaborate safety provisions were in place," Kraft said. "We had warning devices, and we had weather spotters, signaling systems -- the whole works."

When the storm struck, Lametti supervisors ordered their workers to ascend more than 150 feet from the work site below Avon Street and Edmund Avenue near the Frogtown area.

"We were aware of the storm," Kraft said. "The guys were given the order to get out. Theoretically, from past experience, there was more than ample time to do that.

"We used the best judgment of experienced tunnelers, realizing that an emergency took place, and they took immediate action," Kraft said. "They had the experience and knowledge to do what they did."

Project was nearly done

Harlow and Yasis were among eight workers repairing cracks in the St. Albans Tunnel, an 8- to 12-foot diameter storm sewer Lametti built in the early 1980s to connect with a 1960s line that went in when Interstate Hwy. 94 was constructed through the Rondo neighborhood.

Fast-rising, thigh-high, pressurized rainwater began filling the tunnel about 3:30 p.m., according to Kraft and St. Paul Public Works officials. Two workers were hoisted up a 100-foot shaft at Avon and Edmund, but rushing water prompted six others to head more than two blocks north in the tunnel to an exit near Victoria Street, Public Works spokeswoman Natalie Fedie said.

Four of those six men climbed more than 15 stories up a ladder escape, then noticed two of their co-workers were missing. Fedie said the workers, identified by relatives as Yasis and Harlow, were the last in the line of six.

The workers were in the final three weeks of a six-month, $4 million city project to repair the concrete storm sewers.

Harlow, who worked about five years for Lametti, leaves behind four children. Yasis was in only his third month with Lametti. Their deaths are the first local sewer fatalities in 14 years, when an 8-year-old drowned in West St. Paul.

City crews stay away

City engineer Joe Maczko said Public Works Department employees usually perform tunnel work in the winter "when there is lower water flow conditions."

City Council Member Dan Bostrom said the storm "took a whole bunch of people by surprise.

"When the city goes out and hires a contractor, you expect that they are fully prepared for all the eventualities," Bostrom said. "Unfortunately, tragic accidents happen, and this is just one of those unbelievable events."

Although this is the first known sewer worker death in the area, Lantry said St. Paul "should do everything in our power" to prevent another accident, including possible limits on sewer work during the summer when the weather is unpredictable.

"I was still wearing my sunglasses, and 10 minutes later, it was raining like I haven't seen it rain in my life," Lantry said. "We can never prevent some tragic accidents, but should things be changed in the future? You want to make sure enough things are in place to decrease the chances of it."

Lametti's record

Minnesota OSHA records show that Lametti has been inspected four times in five years. Last August, there was one excavation violation and one violation relating to protective equipment that resulted in an "initial fine" of $1,500. But the case is open, and Lametti is contesting the violations, said James Honerman, a spokesman for the state's OSHA branch. Their records show that Lametti successfully contested an excavation violation found in September.

Robert Carlson, an engineer for the city of Minneapolis, said Lametti did a storm sewer project for the city several years ago. "They were a good contractor and seemed to be doing a lot of care for their workers and employees," Carlson said.

Robert Kasper, Laborers Union business agent for Local 132, said that Lametti was very safety conscious.

"I think this is a fluke incident with the weather," Kasper said. "These guys were caught off guard."

Before dawn Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather outlook for a broad area, including the Twin Cities, indicating a strong possibility of "torrential" rains, as heavy as 2 inches in less than an hour. At 2:55 p.m., the Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Hennepin County and followed that 12 minutes later with a similar warning for Ramsey County as the storm moved east. By that time, the company had ordered workers out.

At 3:25 p.m., the Weather Service also issued an urban and small stream flood advisory for the southern and eastern metro area, which would include St. Paul. The weather service measured 0.41 inches of rain at the St. Paul airport between 2:53 p.m. and 3:53 p.m., but city officials noted that more rain fell in some areas of St. Paul.

Veteran urban explorer Greg Brick, who has wandered around the St. Paul tunnels for decades, said he is very familiar with the stretch of sewers where the men were trapped.

"That one is particularly prone to flash flooding," Brick said.

Fedie, the Public Works spokeswoman, said that rainwater from a massive chunk of St. Paul's northern section flows into the line where the men were caught and that the pressure of the water can be extremely perilous.

"When it's high rising and coming that fast," she said, "it can knock you right off your feet."

Staff writers Howie Padilla, Dan Browning and Bill McAuliffe and staff researcher Roberta Hovde contributed to this report. alonetree@startribune.com • 651-298-1545, curt.brown@startribune.com • 612-673-4767, chavens@startribune.com 651-298-1542