Transportation officials announced Tuesday night that six of the seven lanes on the bridge had reopened ahead of schedule and that the one remaining southbound lane would remain closed until further notice.
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Nicholas D’Emealio, 21, of Irvington, New York, was in a vehicle about three football fields away from the crane, toward the center of the bridge, when he heard a bang and his driver slammed on the brakes.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day wrote on Twitter that three people suffered minor injuries when vehicles swerved and stopped to avoid the wreckage.
Cuomo said the crews cutting up the crane had made “significant progress” in clearing the bridge approaching 4 p.m.
Andrew Cuomo said there were three injuries related to the incident, but all were minor.
Cuomo briefed reporters following the collapse of a crane that landed across the north and southbound lanes of the Tappan Zee Bridge Tuesday July 19, 2016.
“It’s a very old bridge that’s been pieced together for a very long time”, he said.
It was “nothing short of a miracle” that the injuries and damage were not worse, he said.
A crane operator was safely recovered from the water by a Westchester County Marine unit after the collapse.
The crane was working on the new, replacement bridge, which is under construction, when the arm of the crane came crashing down on the old, currently-used bridge.
Cuomo said the crane did not land on any cars, but one couple told The Journal News that the crane clipped the back of their pickup truck.
The lack of serious injuries in yesterday’s accident, Cuomo said, was “very, very lucky”, as the collapse easily “could have been a really, really awful tragedy”.
There are 28 cranes in operation on the bridge project to be completed by 2018 – many much larger than the one that toppled.
“It’s a miracle that the boom fell across six lanes of traffic, cars that are doing 60 to 70 miles an hour, and not one auto was hit by the boom”, engineering labor representative Jeff Loughlin said.
One southbound lane will reopen at 7 p.m. tonight, and a second southbound lane will reopen at 8 p.m. tonight.
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“In the meantime, people should use other routes”, Cuomo says. It is several feet and there is also some structural damage to that lane underneath the bridge. “The sides of the bridges, they’re completely destroyed on both sides”, he said.
