Accident at Ford Auditorium Demolition Site

[RedeemerKid]

Heard it from my office. Walked down there to get a look. Lucky no one was hurt.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/28560171/detail.html

[RedeemerKid]

Just as I heard the noise......

[RedeemerKid]

An hour or so later, from ground level.

[Detroitnerd]

Hey, when you're Adamo Demolition, you know you've got a sweet working relationship with the city. No reason to worry about safety in the heart of the city. Git 'er done!

[animatedmartian]

First the transformers, now crane tipping. Ford's not going down without a fight.

[cramerro]

I can't remember if Adamo is doing Cass Tech too but this reminds me of when one of thier cranes flipped there earlier in the spring.

[Hypestyles]

...what caused the crane tipover? this should be carefully scrutinized before further demolition work is done..

[RedeemerKid]

...what caused the crane tipover? this should be carefully scrutinized before further demolition work is done..

Great question.

From chatting with a few people on-site down there, seems like it was user-error. At least that was the consensus among the handful of folks chatting about. Speculation is that the crane operator over extended his reach in a particular direction that caused the crane to tip over.

[stinkytofu]

On a random note, I took a walk at lunch on Wednesday along the river behind the auditorium. Although it's not a great view, it was pretty cool to be able to see all the seats with the back wall now blown out [[I've never stepped foot in the place).

I also noticed the crane and it crossed my mind that the damn thing just plows into things and didn't really seem too sturdy [[considering it works with its base at weird angles while it climbs over rubble).

[1953]

I also noticed how interesting the theater seats looked while walking along the river at lunch today. I bet the view from inside the theater looking out would be good, too!

1953

[RO_Resident]

WDIV has some video of the excavator falling over. It was pulling off part of the roof. It's hard to tell, but it looks like the pile of rubble destabilized when the debris hit. It doesn't look like the equipment was hit by anything.

Between this and the bomb scare on Thursday, things have been a little strange downtown the past couple of days.

[gthomas]

I was there when it happen!!!!..I was scared for my life! I was riding my bike around 10:45 this morning and decided to watch them pull this part of the wall down. The guy in the crane were trying to slowly pull this section of the wall down for about 10 minutes, then I notice that the wall was falling unstably. There was several cops in the parking lot taking picture's and a couple by-standers, including me. When the wall fell it shot off pieces of brick and steel toward the river walk and hit several police vehicles, it received some good damage. The guy in the crane jumped right out when it fell over, I feared for his life and other construction crew. There was a loud bang and dust everywhere, I had to leave from the site area. It was not properly closed off, poor precaution measure were issued. Someone could of been killed or seriously hurt. I was hit with several small pieces of rock, but not injured. Watch FOX 2 News today, they interviewed me and others that was standing around at the time.

[Whitehouse]

Could have been much, much worse....

[Meddle]

The place is hexed and whatever is built on or occupies that site will be hexed as well.

[Bigb23]

Could have been much, much worse...

Should have used a Dino hammer to bring down that Flintstones Condo.

[Krawlspace]

Adamo had a similar incident back in the mid 90's when taking down the Rickle Malt silos. A crane operator decided to take down the silos in such a manner that it left a wall 150 ft tall by 150 ft wide with no additional support. The entire thing came down and crushed the boom and a 3 ft long shackle smashed in the roof of the operator cab. I have pics, but only 35mm prints.

[Fnemecek]

Obviously that crane needs to be demolished...