Crane working on new Bay Bridge span falls

(AP) A crane tipped over while working on the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Thursday, but there were no injuries and nothing leaked into the bay, authorities said.

The crane was on a barge underneath the new span helping to remove a temporary support structure and was holding a piece of the structure when it fell at around noon, according to bridge spokesman Andrew Gordon.

Gordon said the paint was damaged on the underside of a crossbeam, but that no damage was apparent to the bridge itself.

This will not delay the opening of the bridge, Gordon said.

The new bridge is expected to open over Labor Day weekend. It will connect Oakland to Treasure Island and replace a structure that was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

The supports the crane was taking down were installed years ago to hold up the bridge superstructure during construction, according to Bay Area Toll Authority spokesman John Goodwin.

Goodwin said when the cabling system for the suspension span was installed last year, the weight of the bridge transferred to the cable system and the temporary supports were no longer needed.

Their removal was expected to take months. The process had begun in the past couple of weeks, Goodwin said.