Showerthought: The new apartment complex going up near the river in St. Louis has three tower cranes in a perfect triangle.

Laura Green · 2026-04-02T16:30:04.498773+00:00

I was walking my route downtown yesterday and it struck me how the operators must have to coordinate every single lift to avoid swinging into each other's airspace.

elizabethwhite6mo ago

Honestly, that crane triangle sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

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fiona3304mo ago

My uncle Jimmy used to run a crane on the riverfront back in the 80s, and he told me stories about the old welders working on the bridge that spans the Missouri. One time his cable snapped while he was lifting a steel beam, and it swung right into a barge below. Nobody got hurt, but the captain of that barge was so mad he threw a wrench at the crane cab. The triangle thing makes me wonder how they train for that kind of panic situation when the wind kicks up.

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christophermurphy6mo ago

Totally agree with elizabethwhite, that's a scary amount of trust.

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