[UPDATE BELOW] While rescue crews are still searching for two missing people, investigators believe they have pinpointed the cause of the crane collapse, as they take the crane apart, piece-by-piece.
So far, four victims have been officially named, and five were found dead. Emergency officials are still looking for two missing people. The dead were identified as Wayne Bliedner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, of Farmingdale; Anthony Mazza, 39, of Staten Island; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of the Bronx.
YWN spoke with a Misaskim spokesperson, who says that they are in contact with the NYC Medical Examiner’s Office – should their services be needed.
UPDATE 1:50PM EST: A sixth body has just been recovered from the carnage.
UPDATE 2:47PM EST: A seventh body has just been recovered from the scene.
Meanwhile, various Chabad websites, along with WNBC – are reporting that the collapse of the construction crane barely missed the headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch of Beekman-Sutton, home to Rabbi Shmuel and Raizel Metzger, and their three children.
According to Rabbi Yehoshua Metzger, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Midtown Manhattan, a deluge of bricks, concrete and other debris rained down upon his brother’s home, sending the family fleeing the building. The building next to theirs suffered extensive damage, while a building caddy-corner to the Chabad House was leveled.
As WNBC reports: “Raizy Metzger was at home with her toddler son and baby daughter in her East Side Manhattan apartment when she heard, and felt, the boom. All she knew was that she and her children were in danger.
“I literally felt like the walls were going to fall in,” Metzger said. “It sounded like the bricks were falling on the house. I just had to get out. … It was the scariest moment of my life.”
She grabbed her son, Mendel, 2, and the stroller in which her 2-month-old daughter, Chana, was sleeping, and dashed out of the ground-floor apartment.
“It looked like a tsunami of dust,” she said.
Boruch Hashem they were not injured.
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3 Responses
B”H A Purim Neis (miracle)!
Shabbos Zochor! A ‘bad’ event must occur or almost occur and be turned around to saving from it to happen for us to notice the neis. A ‘nes’ is also a ‘banner’,something to display victory. May K’lal Yisroel be saved from all imminent dangers lurking around us these days!
the metzger family is known to me .they truly will have a simchas purim having escaped such a tragedy.the zhcus they have for the avodas haklal saved them.
if they are the metzger’s from the chabad on fifth ave and 42/43 st, the grandfather was an important rov in montreal and mexico city. i remember rabbi hirschberg in mexico city (he once told me an interesting story — he was flying from brazil to central africa, when the stewardess (not allowed to call her that today) called him into first class to stop a fight — two lubavitchers were trying to convince an israeli diplomat to put on tfillin, who didnt want to try it — the rov straightened out matters. the rov never spoke to me about his having been called by the aytatollah to come to iran to give “x-mas / chanukkah holiday services” to the jewish us hostages during jimmy carter’s time, together with father berrigan (catholic) and jesse jackson / reverend norman vincent peale (protestant). )
i’m sure the zchutim of the grandfather are helping the grandchildren.
as ras18 says, their center in the middle of manhattan is a great kiddush hashem (just schedule a mincha “bizman”, please.)