The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued proposed fines totaling $315,536 to 11 companies associated with the deadly October 2019 partial collapse of a Hard Rock Hotel under construction in New Orleans.

Three workers were killed and dozens of workers and passersby were injured when several top floors of the building collapsed pancake-style on Oct. 12, 2019. OSHA has since been investigating the incident, releasing to the public this week more than 100 pages of citations and fines dated March 26.

Citations for two serious violations and one willful violation issued to Metairie, Louisiana-based Heaslip Engineering LLC represented nearly half of the proposed fines at $154,214, according to the documents. One of the serious citations — with a proposed fine of $13,494 — document a series of “design flaws” that included allegations on floor beams were “under-designed in load capacity” and that certain structural elements “exceeded the manufacturer's guidance for maximum spans.”

Heaslip Engineering’s second serious citation, with a proposed fine of $5,783, alleges the company did not initiate and maintain an accident prevention program. The largest proposed fine at $134,937 came from the willful citation, alleging the company “did not furnish employment… free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees and that employees were exposed to the hazards of falling materials and building collapse.”

Groveland, Florida-based Suncoast Projects LLC, a steel fabrication firm doing business as Hub Steel, received the second-highest proposed fines totaling $37,191 for five serious citations, documents its alleged failure maintain structural stability “at all times” during building and failure to provide safety materials and training on site, including that which deals with chemicals and fall hazards, among other allegations.

Citadel Builders LLC, the New Orleans-based commercial general contractor on the site, received $28,338 in proposed fines from three serious citations, all alleging unsafe conditions, including that marked exits and temporary stairways were not provided to “ensure adequate and unobstructed egress” in the event of an emergency and that building plans and drawings, including revisions, were not available on the jobsite as required by OSHA.

The remaining eight companies — mostly subcontractors — received serious citations with individual proposed fines ranging between $8,096 and $23,697; most of the citations allege lack of training and safe exits for workers on site.

The companies, which did not respond to requests for comment, have 15 working days from the March 26 issuance to contest the citations.

In addition to OSHA fines, most of the companies, including the development firm, have been hit with an increasing number of lawsuits, mostly alleging that the firms associated with the project along a busy thoroughfare had been negligent in planning and executing.