Crane Collapses Across New York's Tappan Zee Bridge
No vehicles were hit by the crane.
— -- A crane collapsed across the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York today, and remarkably, no vehicles were hit.
Video from a helicopter recorded by ABC station WABC-TV in New York shows the crane sprawled across multiple lanes of the bridge.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that no one was seriously injured at a news conference today. One worker is being treated for minor injuries, the governor said, and two cars had minor accidents while avoiding the falling crane.
This is the largest infrastructure project going on in the United States right now, according to Cuomo, and this is the first accident at this site.
Cuomo added that they do no not know what caused the accident, but are investigating what happened to the crane and also inspecting the bridge.
“If you said to me that a boom could fall across the Tappan Zee Bridge at noon, not hit a car, not hit a person and there’d be no serious injury, I wouldn’t believe it,” Cuomo said, “So I’m going to say a special prayer tonight.”
Balam Arana, a Westchester County resident who witnessed the incident, told ABC News, "It just crashed literally right in front of us." He described driving across the bridge toward Rockland County when the truck in front of him came to a sudden halt, causing him to swerve to avoid hitting it. He said he then saw the crane come crashing down right in front of his vehicle.
He told ABC News he saw one person who appeared to be receiving treatment for injuries.
Traffic on the bridge came to a halt, Arana said. "It was literally a parking lot. Nobody was moving." Eventually state troopers began directing cars to turn around, one by one, he said.
Some trapped drivers took to social media to share creatives methods of passing time while stuck: