Questions Surround Crane Accident

After a weekend hiatus in the wake of the city’s second fatal crane accident this year, more than two dozen tower cranes will get back to the tasks of lifting and lowering today, even as officials and residents seek answers about what went wrong.Some Manhattan residents whose daily routines put them in the paths of cranes dangling heavy loads over the city’s sidewalks reacted skeptically to reassurances from the Bloomberg administration that the most recent accident appeared to be a fluke and not a part of a larger problem.A former airplane mechanic who lives a block from the site where the crane collapsed on East 91st Street, David Culp, said it seemed “inconceivable” that the city had experienced another construction disaster after several fatal accidents in the past 12 months.“I don’t think I’ll be able to work by a crane or live near a crane for some time,” Mr. Culp, 36, said.A chef who was visiting a friend on East 91st Street, Joe Capozzi, said the collapse “makes me question how they’re running these operations.”“I don’t know exactly what caused this, but if I had to guess, I’d say they weren’t being as careful as they should have been,” Mr. Capozzi, 28, said.Outside the administration, other officials are stepping up with questions about the oversight of the city’s construction sites and suggestions about how it should respond.A spokesman for the state Department of Labor, Leo Rosales, said that at Governor Paterson’s request, the agency was readying a new task force including city and federal representatives that would examine a host of issues related to the city’s construction industry. Mr. Rosales said the group would look at improving inspections and their frequency.He added: “We have to look at licensing, and we have to look at the work sites themselves.”The president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, renewed his calls for beefing up the mayor’s Special Enforcement office to take on construction inspections. And the Manhattan district attorney is looking into whether to bring criminal charges against the parties involved in operating and overseeing the crane.Graham Brent, the executive director of a group that promotes crane safety standards, the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators, said change is needed in the federal government, noting that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been working under 40-year-old guidelines for inspecting cranes.The federal agency started an effort to update its rules on cranes five years ago, but has yet to promulgate the new guidelines. The agency could not be reached for comment yesterday.After a crane collapse on March 15 in which seven people were killed, the Bloomberg administration scrambled to respond with new protocols, increased inspections, and a new commissioner of the Department of Buildings.At the time, the department had been short on inspectors specialized in cranes — five crane and derrick inspectors are now working in a unit with a capacity for eight. But a spokeswoman for the agency, Kate Lindquist, said that after the March collapse the agency augmented the unit with eight inspectors from its special operation teams and a group of private engineers.After Friday’s accident, in which two people, both construction workers, were killed, the acting commissioner, Robert LiMandri, said he was “optimistic” about the results of an emergency summit he called over the weekend with industry executives, saying it might yield new ideas to improve safety.The agency has not yet announced what new steps it will take, however, although Ms. Lindquist said further “changes to the inspection protocols” could be considered.

Questions Surround Crane Accident

Questions Surround Crane Accident

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