Monday, March 17, 2008

DROPPING MORE THAN THE BALL

I can't imagine sitting home watching television or starting an evening dinner early, being on the phone getting friends together for a movie, better yet, folding laundry in the bedroom when a Construction Crane crashes threw the roof and brings down your entire building.

GOD has a way of showing me sometimes that as bad as my life can be, someone is far worst. I am sitting on the futon flipping channel on the television, stewing in deep emotions about an on and off situation that I am trying to pull together in a MOST diplomatic way when my "normally scheduled program is interrupted by the News of a Crane breaking and falling on a building in Manhattan. When the helicopter arial view focuses in, I see that the crane didn't just fall, it crushes the building.

The crane, snapped in two, partially lays on one building while the other is crawled over by New York's finest looking for survivors I say to myself, "What survivors? That building is gone." Just on the main level, street level, there was a restaurant Tubar. I can only guess it was a down time for weekend eating. Then again, with the unusually warm weather, maybe just this day, there were a few extra people looking to be wined and dined and ultimately dead and dying.

I know from the reports that prior to the accident, there were several reports or violations and on site reprimands This noted, we know that this construction site was not on the up and up. Now we have to wait if the laborer were all legit and or ordered to compromise safety for expediency.




To often New Yorkers hear how Construction Workers heir non-Union and un-certified laborers, forcing laborers to work under unsafe conditions with recent deaths occurring throughout the city, how Developers are trading safety standards for bonuses and here just might (and I believe it is) another example of the same.

There is always a cursed blessing story in a tragedy like this. There is a woman who lived in this building who left to run to the store, only to return minutes later to see her home gone. What does she collect in blessing? The fact that she missed being crushed to death or the fact that she has her life and now has to survive with loosing a home she has had all her life and neighbors dead and or dying while she stands outside with her tears?

I still can't get over the fact that this whole event was due to a lack of OVERSIGHT. In Developers bid to beat the clock, cut corners and save money, another life if gone. not only are the laborers dying from these bad decisions but now the people around them are paying the price as well.

1 comment:

Ann Brock said...

poet great article. Once again we see money before people. My understanding this is the first big construction accident for New York. I was surprise by that, been New York is big. I always thought there were alot of construction all the time.