A large crane used to move utility poles tipped over and collapsed onto a Merritt Island home as the homeowner watched on Aug. 13, leaving no injuries but causing massive damage to the house and leaving dozens of nearby residents without water overnight.
The incident happened at about 12:34 p.m. at the home of Jim and Amanda Crane at Mackerel Avenue and Dorsal Street. The crane was removed overnight but the home “is trashed,” Jim Crane said.
“I was out in the driveway watching the whole thing,” said Crane, 78, who said workers told him they were contracted by AT&T to remove the pole.
“I told them they should not be doing that, that they made a big mistake. They tried to pull a telephone pole 300 feet or better across my house.”
Utility workers had rolled into the yard and had begun lifting the telephone pole when workers broke a water main, softening the ground beneath, Crane said. The crane then tipped over from the gushing water, with the boom slamming across the roof and into the kitchen area of the house.
Amanda Crane was not at home at the time of the incident, and the couple’s two dogs were inside the house but were unhurt.
“Had my wife been home … she could have been in the kitchen, where she spends the majority of her time,” Crane said.
Samantha Senger, spokesperson for the city of Cocoa, confirmed that the crane “ran over one of our water mains; it broke the main, which caused it to gush.”
Cocoa water utility crews repaired the damaged water main by midday Aug. 14, restoring water to about 80 residents whose service was interrupted.
Homeowner: House is ‘a total loss’
Crane said he and his wife had lived in the single-family home for 40 years, raising their children and watching the neighborhood grow.
His house, Crane said, was valued at around $500,000, but is now “a total loss.”
It was the second major industrial accident involving a crane to take place in Brevard in less than three months. On June 4, two construction workers with Baker Concrete who were pouring a column at the Health First hospital construction site were killed when a crane collapsed on them. Health First officials described that accident as “a serious weather-related incident.”
J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. X, or Twitter: @JDGallop.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: ‘Trashed’: Crane falls onto Merritt Island house as homeowner watches from driveway
Reporting by J.D. Gallop, Florida Today / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
