Rick Dallmann happened to be there to work on a building project, and said he watched the crane fall in on May 2.
“We had a bunch of stuff on that barge that we were waiting to get offloaded,” he said. “You know, I think it was just a mechanical failure the way it looked because the crane operator wasn’t even in it. It was kind of parked for lunch or something, and it looked like the boom just all of a sudden started coming down and toppled over the side and that was it.”
Dallmann said just a few flats had been unloaded when the incident occurred.
“The boom was all the way up on the crane, and fortunately it was pointing off the side of the barge, ’cause it could have been ugly if it had fell length-ways on that barge,” he said. “It would have wiped out all the stuff on there, could have taken out the tug, or on the dock — if it had fell on that it would have destroyed it. Fortunately nobody got hurt, except for the crane.”
Multiple people in the area that day said it was the Alaska Marine Lines barge and crane. Alaska Marine Lines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Molly Dischne
