Three killed in crane collapse in Bahamas Three members of a maintenance crew were killed when a crane toppled at Hutchison Port Holding’s Freeport terminal in storm conditions on Monday 29 March The men were members of a maintenance crew working on No.10 crane when a tornado tore through the port area, setting crane No. 6 in motion and pushing it into cranes 7, 8 and 9. It appears that crane 10 toppled when it was pushed into the crane rail end stops. One eyewitness account mentioned that a straddle carrier was also toppled. Unconfirmed reports are that four people were working in the crane when it collapsed and that eight others were also injured. Freeport is a vital part of the economy of Grand Bahamas and Prime Minister Ingraham toured the port site the day after the tornado to assess the damage and learn how it would affect capacity. HPH is doing what it can to restore normal operations; plans have been swung into place to move two cranes from South Korea. With four cranes out of operation, Freeport has six cranes and two mobile harbour cranes still in operation and will reportedly be operating at 50% capacity in the short term. At this stage there have been no reports on whether any of the cranes were tied down, but there is a major controversy in the Bahamas over whether cuts to the island’s Meteorological Office (MO) budget are to blame for the tragedy. Ingraham said there had been no warnings of a tornado and announced an investigation into why the MO in Nassau did not issue a severe weather warning. However, warnings were, in fact, issued as far away as Florida. On top of that, Arthur Rolle, the director of the Meteorological Institute in Nassau, has told local media that a severe weather warning advising of strong thunderstorm activity, heavy rainfall, frequent lightning, funnel clouds including tornadoes and waterspouts as well as possible hail and heavy flooding was issued from Nassau. This would have previously gone direct to the Freeport MO, but now went to state broadcaster ZNS; which apparently did not broadcast it. For sure, no plans for bad weather were put in place at Freeport or Port Lucaya, which also suffered damage, and none of the standard procedures such as school and transport closures were followed. The Bahamas Progressive Liberal Party issued a statement claiming that after the closure of the airport MO the Minister for the Environment had given assurances that a new office would be opened, but nothing had been done and “serious questions” would have to be asked about whether the absence of a weather report had contributed to the loss of life.
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