My View On Steel Mills

Recently, I visited Arcelor Mittal in Riverdale (which is a mini mill) where my fiancee works. They had an anniversary tour and I went out there to see where he worked because he'd always come home extremely drained and exhausted and from the stories he told me- it was still hard to picture how its like until I went on the tour.

All steel mill workers have to wear their 'greens', carbon X undershirts and pants,  earplugs, helmet, safety glasses, gloves, and whatever other equipment is needed for their specific department. Greens consist of a green coat with green pants that protect you if you catch on fire. We had to wear them to go on the tour. The greens weigh down on you- that's how I felt anyways it was heavy but I felt protected.

We went to visit the caster floor first. It looked like the inside of a space ship- or a control room with the engines and everything, but most importantly with steel cooking. The air was very dry and it was very humid- the heat is equivalent of standing inside a preheated oven of 400 degrees. I started sweating instantly by the time we got up to the caster floor which is like 4 stories up inside of the mill. It is very loud and hard to hear each other over the noises of the machines. There were these giant fans that were constantly going blowing warm air around the space. You could get the cooler air if you stood right in front of the fan- that's probably the only relief you can get from the humidity. It was endurable for me but it was to the point where I was reaching the point of where I wanted to take off my clothes. I cannot imagine how people can stand to work in there for 12 hours everyday and not go insane from the humidity.

I wanted to see the tundish shop - and that is what I am to believe is the entry level job that many new hires get put in. That's where my boyfriend works and the horror stories he tells me is never-ending.  But during the tour- the tun dish department was never mentioned nor were we shown it. That only irritated me more because how could you overlook the department that probably does the most work- the hardest of the hard labor on a daily basis?

Let me explain briefly to you what the tun dish shop is in charge of to my best understanding. They used a ton of impact tools to scrap off substances from the tun dishes that get sent to them and then they have spray them, and while they are doing all this - did I forget to mention that tun dishes are giant cauldrons with temperatures ranging from 250-300 by the time it's safe enough for them to spray and scrape? It's a very tough job and can break anyone who gets put in that department.

Even though we didn't get to see the tun dish shop. I believe the most interesting department to me is the BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) which melts down scraps and cooks a type of iron to formulate the main ingredient for steel. It was very hot - like a witch's house where there are several big cauldrons just cooking the base ingredient for the steel. It was very fun to watch all of that happen.

All in all it was very informative and fun to go on a tour and see what a mill is all about and what mill life is like.