02.12.2006

The leaning tower?

Washington state Labor and Industries (L&I) is studying photographs taken of the tower crane that fell in Bellevue taken before the November 16th accident.

An appeal has gone out to members of the public to send in any photographs they may have taken. This follows a number of pictures that it has been given which suggest that the tower was at least a metre off the vertical.
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A picture take before the accident suggests that the crane, the yellow one, was leaning backwards

The allowed tolerance for a crane of this height would have been around 150mm. Some construction workers at the site are now saying that they were concerned about the crane's foundation which used a suspended ‘I- beam’ design, they say that it “creaked and groaned” far more than usual.

When concerns were raised at safety meetings they were reassured that engineers had signed off on the base design. The general contractor, Lease Crutcher Lewis, worked with Seattle engineering company Magnusson Klemencic Associates to design the steel structure that spanned four concrete pillars in the basement of the building.
See tower crane collapses
When the replacement tower crane eventually goes up, the contractor says that it will use a standard concrete foundation.