Mayor Bill De Blasio Steps Up Crane Safety After Collapse That Killed ‘Angel’
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday unveiled a series of new policies governing the use of construction booms in the United States’ largest city, after a deadly crane collapse in Manhattan that killed a Jewish man remembered as an “absolute angel.”
A massive “crawler” crane being used to lift equipment into a building in the Tribeca neighborhood toppled over on Friday during a swirling snowstorm, killing a man who worked in the neighborhood, injuring three others and crushing a line of cars parked in the street. Investigators are looking into the cause of the accident.
“No building is worth a person’s life. We are going to ensure the record boom in construction and growth does not come at the expense of safety,” de Blasio said in a statement announcing four policies aimed at improving safety.
David Wichs, 38, was killed when the five-story crane came crashing down on him as he walked down the street. Three others sustained non-life-threatening injuries when falling debris hit them.
The city will now require contractors to stop operating “crawlers” whenever meteorologists forecast steady winds of higher than 20 miles per hour (32 km per hour) and gusts of more than 30 miles mph (48 kph). More than 300 non-stationary crawler cranes were operating in the city last week, the mayor said.
Officials said it was unclear whether high winds played a role in the accident during Friday’s morning rush, when the moderate snowstorm was moving across the city. The mayor would not rule out the weather, the equipment or any other factor as the cause, and said it would not be fair of him to speculate.
De Blasio said the city would also step up efforts to protect pedestrians in areas where cranes are operating and to notify residents and businesses in the vicinity of an operating crane.
Image by Getty Images
De Blasio also announced the formation of a task force to evaluate Friday’s accident and make further recommendations.
The city has come under fire for what critics say has been a slow response to a series of recommendations made by a study commissioned to improve safety at work sites at a time when the city is enjoying a surge in construction.
Hours after Friday’s collapse, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer released the results of an updated audit that found flaws in the Department of Buildings’ management of those recommendations that it had implemented. An initial audit released last year found the city had adopted only a fraction of the recommendations.
In making his case, Stringer cited “at least four significant crane collapses” in the last 2-1/2 years.—Reuters
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
