70 mph winds knocked down three barns under construction at Ohio’s largest egg farm last week, killing two workers. The collapse was blamed on the unusually high winds which knocked over a 10 foot brick wall in a school construction site, and tipped over several semi trucks.

The barns were part of Ohio Fresh Eggs, a farm that produces over 5 million eggs daily in three Ohio counties. The collapsed barns were 15 years old according to local sources.

The two workers killed in the collapse, 25 year old Kevin Maddox and 33 year old Joseph Dixon, were not employees of Ohio Fresh Eggs, but were hired by outside contractors to handle the renovations.

These deaths were the third at Fresh Eggs in less than a year. In September, a worker fell from a ladder inside a grain bin and in March a fire killed 250,000 hens in a separate location. In addition to these accidents, Ohio Fresh Eggs had been repeatedly cited for clean-water law violations. The USDA revoked the company’s permits to operate in 2003, but these were later reinstated. The Environmental Protection Agency also fined the company $300,000 for water pollution.

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