On Friday morning, February 8th, 2016, the boom of a 565 foot long crane collapsed on Worth St, inTriBeCa. Because of the early morning snow and higher winds, the construction workers decided to lower the crane to a more secure level. Instead of a slow, smooth transition from high to low, an unexpected 40mph wind gust collapsed the crane, stretching across 7 city blocks in lower Manhattan. News reports say a two ton hook and wrecking ball hanging on the top of the crane fell off and flew into an apartment window as the crane was falling.
The 565 foot high crane, stretches across seven city blocks
Unfortunately, David Wichs’ life was lost in this terrible construction catastrophe. Age 38, while walking to work, the crane fell on David as he was crossing the street. Three people were badly injured but have survived the crane collapse. Construction workers stopped pedestrians from crossing the street on the corner of Worth St. and West Broadway, but not knowing the crane would fall and stretch across seven city blocks, they didn’t stop pedestrians from crossing the street further up the block, where all of the injuries occurred.
David Wichs, a 38 years old, was sadly killed in the crane collapse
As of Sunday morning, February 7th, two days after the crane collapsed, Mayor Bill De Blasio announces he will be making changes to construction site regulations city wide, to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again. Mayor De Blasio will be lowering the wind-speed threshold at which such equipment must be shut down. The new rules would require crawler cranes to stop operating and go into safety mode under two scenarios: when there is a forecast for steady wind speeds of 20 miles per hour or higher or gusts of at least 30 m.p.h., and when actual readings reach those levels. Previously, such cranes could operate until measured wind speeds reached 30 m.p.h. or gusts increased to 40 m.p.h. Mayor De Blasio is changing this mostly for safety but also for money. The fine for failing to take appropriate precautions would be increased to $10,000 from $4,800.
Copy and paste the URL below to see a video of the crane falling and the after math of it all:
http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/100000004190662/crane-collapses-in-lower-manhattan.html?action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&module=embedded®ion=caption&pgtype=article
By Calvin Ware
Acknowledgements:
-www.nytimes.com for further information on the collapse
-Google Images for all images
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