Dave Pottier, owner of Halifax’s Lead Structural Formwork Ltd. plans to let the 55-metre-tall tower crane his firm installed at an apartment construction site on Bayers Road in Halifax spin freely during the storm, which is expected to hit the province on the weekend. “They tend to weathervane,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. Pottier said Lead Structural let three tower cranes spin freely during hurricane Juan in 2003 and none sustained any damage as a result of the storm, which left a deadly swath of destruction in its wake. “Left unpinned, they’re free to spin,” said Pottier, whose firm has three other tower cranes erected in New Brunswick, where Earl’s impact is also expected to be felt. “They can withstand hurricane winds,” but can’t operate in those conditions, he said. The company plans to tie down construction forms used to pour concrete in advance of the storm.
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