|
Rescue teams dug through the ruins of the crane-crushed East Side townhouse Sunday night for two construction workers and a fun-loving Florida beauty who flew to New York for St. Patrick's Day.
They cleared debris by hand and lowered sensitive microphones into crevices as they tried to find Odin Torres, 28, who was last seen in friend John Gallego's second-floor kitchen.
Torres came to the city Friday and last updated her MySpace page Saturday before the collapse - saying she felt "jolly."
Gallego miraculously survived as the building crumbled around him. He was saved by a Fire Department crew that heard his faint cries for help and dug him out of 24 feet of rubble.
He begged them to find Torres, who relatives said was his best friend. She was nowhere to be found.
Emergency workers also hunted for Santino Gallone, 37, and Clifford Canzona, 45, construction workers from Long Island who were on the 300-foot crane as it fell.
Four of their fellow hardhats were found dead a day earlier.
"Yes, he was there," said a sobbing woman who answered the phone at Gallone's home. "He was a great man."
Gallone, a married father of an 18-month-old daughter, was working a second job on the crane. His wife, Jessica, has maintained a vigil at the Red Cross center since the accident.
"She's just waiting for word," said John King, a friend. "They're hoping he's okay, that he's trapped in one of those air pockets."
The frantic hunt continued deep into the floodlit night on E.50th St., capping a tumultuous day in the traumatized neighborhood:
- Ten people remained hospitalized, but the three critically injured victims were upgraded to serious condition. Those who escaped recounted terrifying tales of their brushes with death.
- Engineers plotted how to move a 130-foot section of crane leaning precariously against a 19-story building, while police kept hundreds of residents out of 12 other buildings for their own safety.
- Investigators said the crane toppled when a 6-ton piece of steel fell 90 feet and sheared off three support beams, but city officials said the crane appeared to have been properly installed and secured to the building under construction.
"Do I think you should worry if there's a crane across the street? No," Mayor Bloomberg said. "People across the street, generally, certainly, are safe."
Officials believe the calamity began Saturday afternoon as crews were "jumping" the crane - installing new sections on the 200-foot main tower to keep pace with what is to be a 43-story building.
A steel collar being installed around the tower at the 18th floor somehow came loose and crashed down onto another collar on the ninth floor - snapping it loose from three 12-inch-wide steel beams that held it to the building.
With no supports remaining above the third floor, the 164-ton crane lurched to the south and snapped atop a building - sending a 75-foot section skidding over rooftops until it obliterated the four-story townhouse where Torres and Gallego were standing in the kitchen.
Milena Schneiderman, 59, watched the crane swaying out of her daughter's seventh-floor window and saw the anguished faces of two doomed workers.
"I saw them panicking, screaming," Schneiderman said. "I was trembling - I looked right at them, and I knew they were going to die."
Retired cop Ralph Fischer said he went to an Off-Track Betting parlor just before the crane demolished his neighbor's 19th-floor apartment. He blew $30 on the horses, but felt blessed.
"I lost my money, but I saved my life," said Fischer, 78.
A construction worker removing the debris said he thought it might be days before the missing men are recovered - including one worker believed trapped in the cab that sat atop the crane tower.
"The brownstone is demolished, flattened all the way down to the bottom," he said. "We think the guy's still in the cab."
City officials said the crane was last inspected Friday in preparation for the weekend work, with no problems found.
Other violations and at least one stop-work order had been issued at the site in the past. Bloomberg said that was not unusual for a large construction project and had no bearing onthe crane.
"As far as we can tell, all procedures that were called for were being followed," Bloomberg said. "Whether it was mechanical fault or human error, we don't know. We think our procedures are adequate, but nobody knows what happened here. It may have been one of those things that no matter what your procedures were, somebody made a mistake."
Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster said the department's engineers will consider whether cranes should require more supports so the loss of a single collar won't lead to utter collapse.
"We're definitely open to reexamining all our procedures," she said. "We'll leave no stone unturned. But in general, it's been safe."
The city has suffered a rash of high-rise deaths and other construction accidents in recent years, and Bloomberg has stood by Lancaster.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer was outraged.
"We cannot tolerate one more death, one more injury, one more family homeless, one more funeral," he said.
 |
