Tappan Zee Bridge silos collapse, no injuries reported

PIERMONT – A floating concrete plant brought to the Hudson River to assist with the construction of the New Tappan Zee Bridge was shut down after a silo structure failed this morning, bringing down two other silos but resulting in no injuries.

The incident reportedly occurred around mid-morning on a platform close to the Westchester shore north of the bridge. The collapse is the biggest accident associated with construction since the project began and was large enough to halt construction operations in the Hudson.

Tappan Zee Constructors (TZC), the group tasked with building the bridge, has already begun to look into the failure. No cause has been determined yet and the overall impact to finances and bridge completion timetables remains unknown.

“All workers are safe and representatives from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and engineers from TZC and the New York State Thruway Authority are on the scene assessing the situation,” TZC said in a public statement. “Safety and environmental stewardship are our top priorities as we continue to investigate this incident.”

The new bridge, which is expected to be complete by 2018, used the plants to manufacture about 125 cubic yards of concrete per hour, producing 300,000 cubic yards over the course of the entire project. The silos were used to store the stone, water and cement before they are all mixed together to create the concrete.

Before the collapse, bridge construction had been proceeding on schedule with no major delays as bridge workers used the concrete to lay down the new bridge’s foundations and columns.