Kiersten Symone Smith killed in crane collapse related to rare weather event in Dallas

[Satanica]

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – At least one person is dead after a crane collapsed onto the Elan City Lights apartment complex near Good Latimer and Live Oak in Downtown Dallas Sunday afternoon, officials said. Heavy winds from severe storms moved through the area Sunday afternoon.

The Dallas County medical examiner’s office identified the woman killed as 29-year-old Kiersten Symone Smith.

Two people are also in critical condition, two in serious condition and one person was already released from the hospital, Dallas Fire-Rescue said.

Officials said crews searched and cleared all the units that were accessible and found no additional victims.

[....]
A quick survey of the garage turned into a life-saving effort as Mendoza and a neighbor rushed to help a man.

“I’m looking next to my truck, and we’re seeing just a pile of cars and we look over to the right, and we see a gentleman kind of dangling in his car, that’s facing straight down. Me and my other neighbor were like, ‘we can’t leave him like that,'” Mendoza said.

Dallas police said several streets are closed due to the crane collapse: Good Latimer at Gaston, Good Latimer at Live Oak, Live Oak at Cantegral and Live Oak at Texas.

Officials said the property managers of the apartment complex will leave the building evacuated and have set up living arrangements for the residents.
[....]

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Those who called Elan City Lights home until Sunday afternoon will be forced to find a new place to live.

"The building has become totally unusable for residential purposes and you will not be able to reoccupy your apartment," apartment managers announced Monday in a note posted online.

Management plans to work with all of the residents to find a new home and have extended the per diem of $100 per day per leaseholder through Friday.

Many of the residents spent Monday filing in to their dark, flooded units in a race against time.
[....]
An executive director at Greystar, which owns both properties involved in the collapse, said 534 residents were impacted.

Jennifer Gonzalez had very little time to decide what would come with her, and what to leave behind. She said residents were escorted into the building in small groups to get some belongings.

“They told us to come grab as much as we could. They gave us about five minutes to grab as much as we could and that was it,” said Gonzalez.

She wore a name tag with a check mark which indicated she’d had her turn to get back into her apartment and collect what she could. Gonzalez said it's unlikely she'll ever get a chance to come back.

She says she doesn’t know what she’ll do next.

“I don’t even think I’m there yet. I don’t think I’ve processed where I’m going to live, what’s next,” she said.

Management said it would refund June rent, zero out utilities and refund all deposits, plus provide $500 for whatever needs residents had.

Checks would be provided June 11 at 3 p.m. at the Latino Cultural Center on Live Oak Street across the street from the complex.

"This was my first alone apartment," Sabian Holmes said.

He's among an estimated 125 residents not able to even step foot inside because of the heavy damage to his unit.

"I'm still in shock, honestly," Holmes said. "Being told that I can't get any of my belongings hasn't really settled in really."

The former Aggie football player said he had irreplaceables on the fifth floor.

"I have signed jerseys all over the place and my personal college jerseys and just stuff that I can't get back," he said.
[....]
Greystar is providing each lease holder a $100 voucher per day to use in whatever way needed, including car rentals.
[....]
Dallas Fire Rescue said it would work with OSHA representatives in the coming days to devise a plan to remove the crane from the apartment building.

Once work gets started, it is expected to take at least two days to remove.

Apartment 'Totally Unusable' After Crane Collapse

Those who called Elan City Lights home until Sunday afternoon will be forced to find a new home. Monday night, managers of the complex posted an update online saying 'the building has become totally unusable for...

www.nbcdfw.com

Post automatically merged: Jun 11, 2019

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – In the past decade, OSHA has cited the Bigge Crane and Rigging Co., the owner of the crane that collapsed killing a woman in Dallas Sunday, with 17 safety violations.

Some of those violations the company is still contesting.

OSHA is heading up what’s referred to as the forensic investigation regarding the crane accident.
[....]
The crane operator, Bigge Crane and Rigging Co., based out of California, flew a team out to Dallas Sunday night.

The company told CBS 11 the team is in Dallas to help answer questions for OSHA investigators.

The model of the crane that fell is the Peiner SK 415. According to its specifications, the crane is designed for winds of 95 miles per hour.

The high wind speed at the time of the collapse was between 75 and 80 miles per hour.

In 2013, Bigge Crane and Rigging Co. was involved in a fatal crane collapse in Arkansas. OSHA cited the company with four serious violations and issued at $28,000 fine for that incident.

The type of crane that fell in Arkansas was not the same as the one that collapsed in Dallas.

Bigge Crane and Rigging Co. said it currently has 74 cranes in operation across the country.
[....]

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[Sejanus]

What a mess.
Lawyers must be creaming their jeans over this .

 

[Satanica]

A resident of the Dallas apartment complex damaged by Sunday's crane collapsefiled a lawsuit Tuesday.

The plaintiff is Macy Chiasson, a mixed martial arts fighter, who was injured as she escaped from the damaged building with her dog.

"She's a tough woman. She ran out barefoot," her attorney Jason Friedman said.

The attorney said Chiasson's apartment was on the first floor of the building, directly below the units that were severed as the crane crashed through the structure. She was forbidden from returning to recover anything.
[....]
Friedman said her losses are much greater than the $500 offered by the landlord.

"I was with her today," Friedman said. "She was in the same clothes as when she escaped. She has nothing. She doesn't even have a license."
[....]
Clement and Friedman both said they believed negligence was to blame for the accident.

Friedman said cranes are typically able to withstand storms like the one that blew through downtown Dallas by releasing the arm so it can move with the wind like a weather vane.

"Look around the area. There are other cranes that survived this wind," Friedman said.

Of the three attorneys speaking Tuesday, only Friedman had filed a lawsuit.

A couple of other personal stories from affected residents is at the link. I wonder if any of the residents had insurance?

Resident Files First Lawsuit Over Dallas Crane Collapse

A lawsuit was filed Tuesday over Sunday’s fatal crane collapse at a Dallas apartment complex as new information about the victims was shared by their attorneys and relatives.

www.nbcdfw.com

 

[Satanica]

DALLAS - A plan to remove the crane that fell onto a Dallas apartment complex is slowly moving forward, but there is still no timeline on when it will be removed.
[....]
Residents still have questions about when they might be able to retrieve their cars and other belongings.

Next week will mark one month since the crane collapsed.

Initially, there was a plan to have a disaster recovery contractor pack up residents' belongings, and those items were supposed to be available to be picked up starting this month.

But now, it seems those plans have been put on hold.
[....]
The fallen crane and destroyed apartment building remain virtually untouched since the accident on June 9.

“I would expect by now things would've moved along quicker,” Castellanos added. “The road’s still closed, it just looks like nothing has been done, so I can only imagine how much longer.”

According to the latest update from apartment management, all but 184 units are in the “impacted zone.”

They can't safely access certain areas until OSHA finishes its investigation and releases the site.

The company says it doesn't have a definitive timeline on when the crane will be removed because a team of engineers and crane specialists is still forming a removal plan.

And cars in the parking garage can't be touched until the crane is removed because the entrance to the garage has been destroyed.

“It's a big crane, it's kind of hard to move. They have to make the process, the logistics of it. It's not surprising that it's still there,” Luis Perez, who lives nearby, added.

Apartment management previously sent an update saying cars and other items in the 184 unaffected units would start being removed last month, but that has yet to happen.

Management says a structural engineer has already certified the safety and integrity of the units outside the impacted zone, but they still need to bring in generators to restore power to those areas and inspect the freight elevator.

They hope to have a plan submitted to authorities by next week.
[....]
Though they've received some assistance from apartment management, other residents in unaffected units have said they still can’t file insurance claims on their property because it hasn’t been deemed a total loss, they just can’t get to their items.

Still no timeline on when crane that collapsed on Dallas apartments will be removed

A plan to remove the crane that fell onto a Dallas apartment complex is slowly moving forward, but there is still no timeline on when it will be removed.

www.fox4news.com

 

[Keepalowprofile]

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[cubby]

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I suppose they put in the lowest bid?

 

[Satanica]

More than a month after the deadly crane collapse at a Dallas apartment building, former residents will be able to get their belongings, according to a Facebook post from Elan City Lights Apartments.

The items that remained in "Elan City Lights" units have been professionally packed and moved to a storage facility.

On Monday, July 15, those who lived at the building can start picking up their things or have their boxes moved at discounted rates.
[....]

Recovery Efforts to Begin Monday for Residents' Property at Site of Dallas Crane Collapse

The former residents of the Dallas apartment complex that was crashed under a collapsed construction crane are learning more about what’s being done to retrieve their belongings.

www.nbcdfw.com

 

[Satanica]

[....]
After the June 9 collapse, NBC 5 Investigates began asking what the state of Texas — the nationwide leader in crane-related deaths — and the city of Dallas are doing to protect the public from such accidents in the future.

The answer can be summed up in one word: nothing.
[....]
Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax declined an interview request with NBC 5 Investigates to talk about crane safety in Dallas.

Instead, the city sent an email that said, "Currently, the city is not pursuing local regulations for the installation, use or maintenance of construction cranes."

"City staff will continue to evaluate policies and procedures regularly and will recommend changes to City leadership as necessary …," the email continued.

The city said it doesn't even keep record of how many construction cranes are up, or where they are located, prompting NBC 5 Investigates to do its own count.

We found 21 in Dallas alone and those were only tower cranes, the largest in the construction crane lineup.

The cities of Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston also told NBC 5 Investigates they do nothing to regulate or monitor the cranes that go up in a growing economy and building boom.

"The city doesn't track cranes," Houston said in an email, adding: "Also… a building permit is not required to use a crane. Therefore, we would not have stats on current crane use."

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and the Texas Department of Insurance also said cranes, and crane operators, do not fall under their watch, leaving it up to the federal government to provide oversight.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, requires third-party inspections of cranes and, since last year, requires that operators be certified by an accredited certifying body.

In an email, OSHA told NBC 5 Investigates that between Oct. 1, 2018 and June 30 it had conducted 40 crane inspections in its Region VI area, composed of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Tom Barth, a crane operator and accident investigator with more than four decades of experience, said OSHA inspection requirements don't go far enough.

He said the agency rarely checks the third-party inspection reports, or does its own inspection, unless a formal complaint is filed, or an accident occurs.

"And with all the thousands and thousands of cranes out there all over the United States, OSHA doesn't have that many inspectors…," Barth said.

He also said local inspectors should observe crane operators on the job, noting that all of the 140 crane accidents he investigated involved some sort of operator error.
[....]
Texas leads the country in crane-related fatalities among workers, totaling 50 between 2011 and 2017, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That far outpaces the next four states: Florida and New York, each with a total of 16 deaths; and California and Illinois, each with 14 fatalities, the BLS reported.

Despite leading the country in crane deaths, Texas is not on the list of 16 states and seven cities that now have their own licensing requirements for crane operators, according to the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators.
[....]
"Yeah, we worry," said Dallas business owner Royd Riddell, who was surprised to hear the city did nothing to regulate the skyscraper-high cranes that dwarfed his small shop of antique maps and fine prints.

"That would wipe me out," Riddell said of the tower crane reaching over his business, "and, of course, it would damage the people in the high-rise next to me."

"So, it would be tragic."

Texas Leads Nation in Construction Crane Deaths, But Does Nothing to Prevent Them

Inside the security of her own home, Kiersten Smith had every reason to feel safe on that summer day – from the approaching storm, from the perils of a booming city, and certainly from the gigantic construction crane that hovered above her.

www.nbcdfw.com

 

[Satanica]

DALLAS - OSHA has released the site of the crane that collapsed on a Dallas apartment complex last month.

Elan City Lights Apartments management and the crane company will now have to work out a plan to safely remove the crane. No date has been set for the removal.
[....]

OSHA releases site of Dallas crane collapse; Crane can now be removed

OSHA has released the site of the crane that collapsed on a Dallas apartment complex last month.

www.fox4news.com

 

[Satanica]

DALLAS - The company responsible for the crane that collapsed onto the Elan City Lights Apartments was cited by OSHA and fined about $26,000.
[....]
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the investigation into the accident is now complete but the case is still open.

The citation states that when erecting the crane, Bigge Crane and Rigging Co. did not follow the manufacturer's recommendations to remove bolts that showed rust or address surface corrosion of structural tower members.

The operators also did not inspect the crane for loose bolts on the day of the accident and had not performed an annual inspection of all turntable and tower bolts for proper condition and torque.

Bigge Crane has 15 working days to either accept and agree to pay or contest the citation and fine.

The company is also facing several lawsuits, including one filed by former residents who claim they’ve suffered both injuries and “invisible injuries,” like PTSD and anxiety. They’re seeking more than $1 million in relief.

Crane company fined $26K for deadly Dallas collapse

The company responsible for the crane that collapsed onto the Elan City Lights Apartments was cited by OSHA and fined about $26,000.

www.fox4news.com

 

[Satanica]

Nearly $60 million -- that's how much one group is seeking in a lawsuit after a devastating crane collapse in downtown Dallas.

The suit filed Tuesday in Dallas County accuses negligence against the crane company and its operator in the deadly collapse over the Elan City Lights apartment complex, according to documents obtained Thursday by NBC 5.
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The insurance underwriters who represent Greystar Real Estate Partners and the complex Elan City Lights say in their lawsuit that insurance claims are still ongoing and that they have already paid out $59.7 million to people and businesses affected by the collapse.

The suit says the number may actually increase as payouts continue.
[....]
As far as we know, the exact cause of the crash that killed 29-year-old Kiersten Smith is still unclear despite an investigation by OSHA. More than a dozen lawsuits have already been filed in Dallas county since the crane collapse.
[....]

Crane Company Named in Deadly Dallas Collapse Faces $59 Million Lawsuit

A lawsuit is seeking nearly $60 million in damages from the crane company named in the deadly collapse over the Elan City Lights apartment complex in downtown Dallas two years ago.

www.nbcdfw.com