28.06.2006

Storms bring down crane boom

A truck mounted latticed boom crane working on the new Burger King headquarters Coral Gables Florida had its jib and top half of its main boom ripped off yesterday afternoon as sever storms hit the area.

The first thing to go was the cranes jib which collapsed onto the building under construction, fortunately no one was hurt, half an hour later the top half of the main boom surprisingly snapped off.,
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Poor picture of the broken boom

Police evacuated Banyan Day School across from the construction site as officials became concerned that another crane on the other side of the construction site would topple over and wanted to make sure that it is secured.

The site will be closed until a full inspection is completed, The crane is owned by George's Crane Service of Doral, Florida.
No further details are available at this time.

Vertikal Comment

The crane concerned appears to be a relatively old lattice boomed truck crane of the type that it is hard to fine these days in Europe. This application would almost certainly have been covered by a tower crane in most cities. While the storm was severe the lattice boom should have easily withstood this level of wind.
Given the high humidity in the area and the apparent age of the crane it will be interesting to see the final report of what happened. Thankfully no one was hurt this time round.