Halifax residential neighbours surrounding the construction sites on Brenton Street and on Dresden Row are calling for answers after a construction crane collapsed during Hurricane Dorian Saturday afternoon.
The crane on the site at Brenton Place and Brenton Street collapsed and toppled onto nearby buildings. Parts of the crane, including the heavy cement counter-weights, fell into South Park Street. Other parts rest atop an unfinished building.
Christopher Breckenridge, of Clyde Street, and a member of the Brenton-Schmidtville Liveability Group, watched the crane swaying in the hurricane moments before the collapse. “It’s a wonder that nobody was killed or seriously injured. We have at least three construction sites within a block of our house,” says Breckenridge. “We have warned people associated with the construction to make sure the neighbours are safe, and then this happens.”
His brother, William, says that with the proliferation of construction sites in the area, hurricane season and increasingly severe weather, such dangerous events will happen again. “Last February 26, we neighbours were treated to a 10-minute pyrotechnic display of sparks, fire and small explosions at the Dresden-Clyde site when that crane’s electric cables struck something. That was pretty scary. And what happened yesterday was just as scary.”
Members of the Brenton-Schmidtville Liveability Group are demanding that building developers, HRM and the province hold a public meeting immediately to explain what happened, how it happened and what they’re going to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
For more information, contact Christopher Breckenridge breckec@aim.com
They should be fined, someone could have been killed or seriously injured. Cranes just like wharf should be dismantled during high winds and especially during a hurricane. The people in the south end are very lucky today..it could have been a lot worse!