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"  The Northeast is reeling from Hurricane Sandy&amp;#039;s blow to the largest population center in the United States. Along with the harrowing images of the Jersey Shore underwater and the creepy two-faced nature of a half-powered Manhattan skyline, one of the eeriest pictures of the storm is the broken construction crane dangling above 57th street. The mangled mass of metal and cable atop a half-finished luxury residential skyscraper caused whole city blocks to be evacuated. So what went wrong? And how is it going to get fixed? The second question might be the easiest to answer. The New York Times reported on Friday that the workers will begin to secure the damaged portion of the crane over the weekend. The plan is to secure it just enough to reduce the risk of anything falling those 90 stories to the street. The Times says that New York hopes to allow the evacuated Midtown homes and businesses to return to normal on Monday. But taking the crane down entirely is a different matter. Workers will probably need to build an entirely new tower crane next to the damaged structure to remove the debris. The process could take weeks to complete. &amp;quot;No matter what they do, it&amp;#039;s going to be a big project,&amp;quot; says Thomas Barth, a crane expert who had worked in the business for nearly 40 years. Inspectors have visited the site, and initial statements from the Department of Buildings say that wind was a primary factor in the failure. That&amp;#039;s not a big surprise in a hurricane. The question, then, is: Why did this crane fail when so many others across New York City did not? Initial discussion has centered on whether or not the crane was properly prepared for the hurricane. When it was shut down before the storm, the boom of the crane should have been set at an appropriate angle, with the brake off, so that it could weathervane, or rotate along with the wind, instead of fighting it. &amp;quot;Anytime a crane operator gets out of the crane to go home, what he does is lower the boom down, then he takes the brake off,&amp;quot; Barth says. Barth says that if the crane operator couldn&amp;#039;t execute the procedure properly, then the operator, site supervisor, or inspector should have noticed that something was off. &amp;quot;Why nobody caught it is beyond me\u2026 Especially with all the accidents in New York you&amp;#039;d think that people would be more alert to these things,&amp;quot; he says. Terry McGettigan, a crane inspector and consultant with 36 years of experience in the field, has, also been pouring over the information released from New York, looking for clues. Talking to PM, he raised the possibility that the cause could have been a mechanical failure instead of human carelessness, or a combination of the two. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve seen many times where the system doesn&amp;#039;t function properly,&amp;quot; McGettigan says. He encourages operators to do additional motion checks to make sure that everything is working properly with the weathervane system by moving the crane just prior to shutting the crane off. If it glides smoothly to a stop, then everything is working normally. If it stops with a sudden jerk, the brake is still on and needs to be fixed. In statements given to the press, the company that runs the construction site, Lend Lease, maintains that it &amp;quot;took all recommended measures to position the crane in anticipation of a hurricane.&amp;quot; Whatever the cause, this worksite is not without its share of troubles. It has received numerous violations from the city, including a citation in August for leaking hydraulic fluid and a violation for breaking a window in a nearby building in May while the crane was in use (that one was dismissed). Calls to the Department of Buildings for further information went unanswered. But for now, preliminary reports maintain that there was some strange wind gust that caused the crane to bend backwards, and not negligence coupled with the storm. There is speculation that a strong wind gust hit the building and created an updraft of air that rushed up the side of the building, pushing the boom of the crane backwards to the point that it collapsed. The city will conduct further investigations in the next few days.  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not going to be hard for the investigators to figure this out,&amp;quot; McGettigan says. &amp;quot;You have to know the wind direction and the orientation of the crane, and that will tell the whole story.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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