“The sides of the bridges, they’re completely destroyed on both sides”, he said. “We’ll know more after [an] inspection”.
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Later in the evening, two southbound lanes opened in succession.
The wire service notes that people who were unharmed by the crash were left stranded on the bridge, trapped by the resulting traffic snarl. “It was a lot of machinery to move and this is literally within hours, the damage has been removed, the bridge has been reopened; the bridge has been inspected”.
Check out video from the crane collapse at Tappan Zee Bridge near New York City here.
Officials said Tuesday that it was unclear what caused the crane to collapse around noon.
CBS is reporting severe delays near the bridge along I-87.
Brian Solomon, one of the drivers stuck on the bridge, said that hundreds of people got out of their cars to gawk.
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 state’s longest bridge connects New York City’s densely populated suburbs of Westchester and Rockland counties, and carries more than 130,000 vehicles per day. At least one person was hurt in that collision, though the extent of the injuries wasn’t clear. The boom was over the side of the crane and the bridge working with a large piling hammer. Fortunately, no vehicles appear to be pinned under the crane, and no additional injuries have been reported due to the collapse at this time.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is en route to the bridge, according to his Twitter account.
“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. “Sometimes equipment breaks and accidents just happen”, said NYS Governor Cuomo. He tweeted that the crane operator was shaken but not hurt.
Jeff J. Loughlin, the business manager of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 137, the union that represents the crane’s operator, said that the operator remained at the scene with a union representative, and was expected to undergo drug and alcohol testing.
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There were two fender-benders when cars stopped right after the crane came down.
