SEATTLE _ A crane working on a new campus for Google in South Lake Union fell Saturday at about 3:30 p.m., pinning cars beneath it and killing four people.
Two crane operators and two people in separate cars were dead by the time Seattle firefighters got to the site, fire officials said. Four others were injured, including a mother and child and a 27-year-old man, according to Fire Chief Harold Scoggins. He said six cars were hit.
"It was terrifying," said Esther Nelson, a biotech research assistant who was working in a building nearby and saw the crane fall from a break-room window.
"I looked up. The wind was blowing really strong," she recalled. She saw boats struggling on Lake Union. Then the crane _ maybe eight or nine stories high, she estimated _ broke in half.
"Half of it was flying down sideways on the building," she said. "The other half fell down on the street, crossing both lanes of traffic."
Among the four dead were the two crane operators and two people in separate vehicles, said Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins. Four others were injured, including a mother and child who were in satisfactory condition. A 27-year-old man was in serious condition, and a fourth person was treated at the scene.
Authorities had not identified the victims by name as of 5:30 p.m. The King County Medical Examiner's Office said it would not release names of the dead until Monday.
Seattle activated its emergency operations center Saturday afternoon to coordinate the response.
Corina Berriel, 27, was driving west on Mercer when the crane started falling and hit a black Nissan right behind her.
"The first thing I felt was a jolt from behind," she said. "It almost felt like an earthquake." She saw dust and debris falling from the sky. She thought she was about to die.
When she looked in her rearview mirror, she saw it was not an earthquake but the falling crane, which hit the black Nissan. The car's back windows and trunk were destroyed but the vehicle was able to move when the traffic sped up. A woman got out of the car and ran away, Berriel said.
Berriel also saw a couple walking their dog flee the scene, the dog in their arms as they ran. She could see them shaking.
Other witnesses described hearing a dramatic sound. Alan Van Rosendael said he heard a large crash "like thunder."
Jane Adler, who lives nearby, said it "started downpouring" and then she heard a loud crash. "I thought it was a fighter jet." She said she saw multiple people being carried away from the scene, either dead or injured.
The building under construction was badly damaged, with several of its windows punched out by the crane.
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The project is one of the city's biggest construction projects _ at a time, it hosted three cranes at once. It's being built by the main developer remaking South Lake Union _ the late Paul Allen's Vulcan Real Estate.
The four-building, 607,000-square-foot project will house a new Google Seattle campus, and also includes about 150 new apartments. Construction began in 2017 and is set to be finished later this year.
"We are in the process of gathering information. It's best if you direct all inquiries to the Fire Department that has responded to the scene," said Natalie Price, a Vulcan spokeswoman.
Daren Konopaski, the business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302, which represents heavy equipment operators, said he understood the crane was being dismantled when heavy winds moved through the area.
"We don't know, but that's what seems to have happened here," he said. "We are in the process of trying to get information."
He could not confirm that the crane operators were among the dead.
Previously, a crane collapsed in Bellevue in November 2006, damaging three neighboring buildings and killing a Microsoft attorney who was sitting in his living room. The state Department of Labor and Industries cited two companies for workplace-safety violations following an investigation that found a flawed design for the crane's base.
