Sparks flew over a construction site on Dresden Row in downtown Halifax on Tuesday night.
“I was watching television and around 8:50, I looked out my window and the crane had started to spark,” said witness Eilidh Lindsay-Sinclair.
At first, she says the sparks were small but that quickly changed, just seconds after she turned on her camera.
Her footage, which is included in the video report accompanying this article, shows how serious it was.
“Just as I was filming it, the sparks kind of went wild and the video ended abruptly cause I sort of like threw my phone to the floor and got behind my sofa,” said Lindsay-Sinclair. “I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen. It sort of felt like maybe the crane, something was going to explode. It was kind of crazy.”
Lindsay-Sinclair wasn't the only one concerned about the crane.
Shayla Dickson also captured footage of the bizarre incident.
“We have a big window on the top of our unit and saw some sparks and some blasts of light and that went on for, I don't know, a few minutes, and then it stopped,” Dickson said. “Then it ended up starting back up again, every couple minutes.”
Banc Group, the company behind the project, says the crane went into a spin last night due to high winds and kept on spinning which is unusual.
Excessive and repeated spinning caused the wires to get twisted and then eventually get severed.
“It was a little scary because the crane kind of goes over my house,” Dickson said.
The company says a certified electrician was brought in and the severed wires have been fully repaired.
They say there was no danger to the public and that this is the same type of tower crane used in cities all across the globe, calling it an isolated incident.
BANC also the incident was reported to department of labor, who investigated and are said to be satisfied with the measures the contractor has taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Natasha Pace.
