1 Dead, 3 Injured when Crane Collapses in NYC

**kellyhound** · #1 ● 02-05-2016, 03:25 PM

NEW YORK — One person sitting in a parked car was killed and three people were injured Friday when a huge construction crane collapsed in lower Manhattan as workers tried to lower and secure it against rising winds, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The victim is described as a 38-year-old man. The injured were hit by falling debris. Two are in serious condition.

The crane, with a 565-foot boom that stretched roughly as long as a city block, tumbled down around 8:24 a.m. ET near 40 Worth Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood, the New York City Fire Department said.

Jesse Natale, a 26-year-old civil engineer from Westfield, N.J., told the Daily News he was waiting at a traffic light at the site when the crane came down.

“If I caught that light, I’d be dead probably,” he said. “It looked like an avalanche — or that the roof was caving in from the snow.”

Twisted red-colored metal from the runaway crane smashed into parked cars and debris littered streets and sidewalks. More than 100 firefighters and emergency personnel and more than 30 firetrucks and other equipment responded to the scene.

Fire officials said utility workers were taking gas readings in the area and making plans to excavate and cap a low-pressure gas main in the wake of the collapse.

De Blasio said construction work was halted on the building Thursday after operators decided to lower and secure the crane against winds, which gusted past 20 mph Friday morning.

“They were in the process of securing the crane ... actually preparing to bring it down, to secure it,” he said.

De Blasio said there likely would have been more victims if workmen weren't already clearing the area of traffic and people to prepare for lowering the crane. "Thank god it was not worse," he said.

Glenn Zito, who was working on the upper floors of a building across the street, captured the crane's collapse in a dramatic video.

Zito and two other workers were asked to come down from the upper floors because of the wind and were making their way down when they stopped to watch the crane being lowered.

Glenn Zito was on the 30th floor of a neighboring building when a massive crane crashed in lower Manhattan. At the time of the recording, it wasn't known that one person was killed and several others were injured.

"At a certain point (as) it was coming down, it was probably at 90 degrees, the two halves, and then it just sped up," Zito said. "And at that point we watched it fall and then the body of the cab of the crane flipped over.”

Zito pans the camera from left to right and follows the metal boom as it plummets to the ground and lands in a heap in the middle of the road.

"You always think it’s going to be a possibility," said Chris Andrinopouls, another workman. "You really don’t want that to happen."

A few wind gusts of 20-25 mph were reported between 8 and 9 a.m. Friday in Manhattan, according to data from Weather Underground.