The daily Astorian., April 29, 2019, Page A5, Image 5

A5
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, ApRIL 29, 2019
AP Photo/Frank Kuin
Fire and police crew members work to clear the scene where a construction crane fell Saturday
from a building on Google’s new Seattle campus.
Fallen crane kills four in Seattle
Cause of collapse
under investigation
By EVAN BUSH and
NINA SHAPIRO
Seattle Times
Seattle’s
construction
frenzy turned deadly Satur-
day afternoon when a tower
crane working on a new
Google campus fell like a
thunderbolt from the roof of
a South Lake Union build-
ing, smashing into six cars
and killing four people.
Two ironworkers who
were in the crane and two
people in separate cars were
dead by the time Seattle
firefighters got to the site
at Fairview Avenue North
and Mercer Street around
3:30 p.m., fire officials said.
Sarah Wong, a freshman
at Seattle Pacific University
who was exploring a poten-
tial major in nursing, was in
a car when the crane fell and
was among the dead. Iron-
workers Andrew Yoder and
Travis Corbett were also
killed, KING reported.
Four others were injured.
The state Department
of Labor and Industries is
investigating the cause of
the accident. Several wit-
nesses and the National
Weather Service reported
a storm squall with power-
ful gusting winds moved
through the area at the time
the crane was being disman-
tled, then toppled.
“It was terrifying,” said
Esther Nelson, a biotech
research assistant who was
working in a building nearby
and saw the crane fall from
a break-room window.
“I looked up. The wind
was blowing really strong,”
she recalled. She saw boats
struggling on Lake Union.
Then the crane — she esti-
mated it was maybe eight or
nine stories high — broke in
half.
“Half of it was fly-
ing down sideways on the
building,” she said. “The
other half fell down on the
street, crossing both lanes of
traffic.”
It was the first fatal tower
crane collapse in more than
a dozen years in the Seat-
tle area, during a period of
remarkable growth with
skyscrapers sprouting up
and cranes dotting the sky-
line. Much of that construc-
tion explosion has occurred
in the South Lake Union
neighborhood.
Seattle activated its emer-
gency operations center Sat-
urday afternoon to coordi-
nate the response. Police
interviewed witnesses at the
nearby Even Hotel.
“This is a tragic day in
Seattle with this catastrophic
incident in the heart of our
city,” Mayor Jenny Durkan
said in a statement. “My
heart breaks for those who
lost loved ones today, and
we are praying for strength
for those injured.”
Among
them
were
Deyan Cashmere, 20, of
Australia, who was in Seat-
tle for cancer care at nearby
Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center. He was
with his father, Eric, 48, and
the pair of them had noticed
hours before the collapse
that the crane was being dis-
mantled. To him, it appeared
to be leaning.
“I thought it was going to
fall,” Deyan Cashmere said.
“It was at an angle. It wasn’t
standing upright.”
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