Ontario native Alex Glista had never experienced a hurricane before Saturday.
It turns out he witnessed what was likely the signature event of Dorian in the Halifax region when a crane fell onto a residential tower under construction near South Park Street and Spring Garden Road.
“We were watching the storm and all of a sudden we looked out the window and we just saw the massive crane looking like it was seemingly falling towards our building,” Glista said Sunday at the Halifax scene.
“And it fell on top of the building under construction and it kind of bent almost like spaghetti on top of it and there was a loud boom. There was a bit of dust kicked up from when it crashed down, and it was a huge surprise.”
Glista said the storm had caused the crane to sway quite a bit throughout the day.
“It was definitely something I was keeping my eye on.”
The Dalhousie University master’s degree student said he lives on the second floor of a nearby apartment building. He hunkered down with a friend to ride out the storm.
Over the summer, he said, workers at the site had told him that a temporary crane had been brought in to do some work.
“Ever since then I was always kind of just a little wary of that crane,” he said. “I’m not someone who’s typically scared of cranes in the city, but whenever there were storms, it would sway a lot. My observations from the past of the sway, as well as this event in the summertime where they brought in a new piece for the crane, kind of made me alert about this specific crane.”
Glista said the collapse was surreal.
“You kind of were paralyzed as you watched it come down,” he said.
“We’re lucky that no one got hurt and we’re lucky that the crane fell the way it did.”
At the height of the storm, it felt like his entire apartment building was shaking, said Glista.
“When the crane fell, it was kind of a ‘holy cow’ moment,” he said.
“I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, to be honest. It was a little bit more intimidating than I thought. I was kind of more in the mindset of ‘It’s going to be something exciting to live through.’ But when it got here, I kind of realized the true power of Mother Nature.”
The area around the crane has been cordoned off, Erica Fleck, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency’s assistant chief of community risk reduction and logistics, said Sunday.
“We’re liaising with all the applicable authorities and the company has been contacted,” Fleck said. “We’re continuing to work on a plan.”
Dan Kinsella, chief of Halifax Regional Police, said the company was behind one of several construction projects contacted in a general sense by the force ahead of the storm.
“Our messaging was broadbased around all construction sites,” said Kinsella, who did not know the name of the company.
“The (Labour Department) has been contacted and they are going to be looking into the details around how and why the crane collapsed.”
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