Engineer Set to Look at Crumpled $6 Million Cranes at Blount Island

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- A structural engineer will be at Blount Island Thursday trying to figure out how cranes fell and when crews can beginning cleaning up the damage.

No one was hurt. Nancy Rubin, Director of Communications for JAXPORT, told First Coast News what happened Wednesday afternoon was a unique event.

Rubin believes a microburst of wind or a rare wind occurrence came through and pushed a crane, weighing almost a thousand tons, down the track and into a row of other cranes. (There are five in that row.) Rubin says the brake was set.

Two cranes are in pieces. A third one was damaged. Rubin does not know the extent of the damage. She says the engineer will have to determine if it is salvageable.

Two others are still standing and don't appear to have any damage. But the engineer will have to inspect them.

Rubin told us the cranes were not in use when two of them fell. There was no cargo in the area. The cranes are used to lift containers on and off ships at the terminal.

"We were very lucky," said Rubin. "Usually, dozens of people work in that area."

It is a very busy terminal. Once again, there were no injuries.

Rubin says the cranes have withstood tropical storm force winds. So, what went wrong Wednesday? The structural engineer will have to determine if Mother Nature was the culprit.

The cranes are blocked off at Blount Island. But that's not stopping business at JAXPORT's largest terminal. Rubin says schedules will have to be adjusted and crews and businesses may have to use the terminal at Talleyrand.

There is no price estimate yet on the damage. But it will be millions of dollars. Each crane is worth $6 million. Two of them are destroyed.

There is no word on how long it will take to clean up the area. The engineer will have to assess the damage and make that decision.