Crane? What crane? Guess there’s nothing to see here | Column

Hello from 3:24 a.m., where I’m writing a version of this dispatch via the glow of my phone in the bathroom. I woke from a dream:

People were stuffed inside the elevator at the Tampa Bay Times’ building in downtown St. Petersburg. You know the building. Giant crane from the highest tower in the city plunged into it during Hurricane Milton? Yeah, that one.

In the dream, the elevator was plummeting, and we begged to go up to avoid hurricane floodwaters. We didn’t know a crane would soon be crashing through the high floors.

I am not what you would call rested. I am so angry I can’t sleep. Not just about what happened to the building, but the reaction to it, the blatant disregard for life and safety, the throwing up of hands. I’m furious at the generations of leaders who could have put protections in place but instead continue to bend over and get spanked by Big Condo.

We Times journalists might be talking about the loss of our office more than anyone, which makes sense. We are professional blabbers.

But the building, which the Times used to own but later sold, is not just about us. It’s an ecosystem inhabited by a government contractor, a law firm, small businesses and a cafe where customers with cute dogs bought pink smoothies. There are floor moppers and security guards and people who water the plants.

There was plenty of life at that Frankenstein of an office space. With about 20 years there myself, I admit to an outsized share of nostalgia. Other tenants had chandeliers and espresso machines, but not the newsroom. The carpet was weird, the furniture was late 1980s and toilet flushing could be a gamble. The ugly beige walls held our framed Pulitzer Prizes.

Since the crane incident, some in the community have co-opted imagery of the crushed exterior to unfurl a metaphor of a quality last heard in a 10th grade lit class. The crane! It symbolizes the death of the Times! And, look, criticism of our business is fair game. We literally lived in a glass house; we must field stones.

But that funereal line of chatter felt especially half-formed at a time when our journalists were hunkered in hotel rooms posting hundreds of storm updates around the clock as a free public service, or being blown around on dangerous roads with military-grade gas cans so they could file stories from 20 locations.

That brings us to one of those scenes.

Not only did those journalists capture the real-time account of tens of thousands of pounds of steel littering St. Pete streets in the stormy night, they set out to learn the bigger story behind what happened.

Woo, it’s a classic.

Florida, Promised Land of Hurricanes and Evaporating Coastlines, has no laws when it comes to making cranes safe during bad weather. In fact, local governments are banned from even passing their own rules.

Why? Because a dozen years ago, when the Legislature thought about setting standards, lawmakers said no under the pressure of construction groups greasing the wheels in hallways and bars.

That kind of greedy political balderdash has real consequences. It’s incredible that no one died as a crane fell from the future Residences at 400 Central on Oct. 9. It’s especially incredible when you consider the series of wishy-washy press conferences surrounding the disaster, a veritable buffet of undercooked chicken.

As the hurricane’s cone bore down upon Tampa Bay, as residents fortified windows and inched away in gridlocked traffic, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch announced that cranes might fall during the storm. Hamstrung city officials had asked, not ordered, the cranes to come down.

The developers said there was no time. The city said residents could opt to leave or, you know, go in a stairwell or something.

It gets even more lukewarm, more crawling with listeria. After the storm, Gov. Ron DeSantis stood in front of the gaping, mangled building and said, bad developer, bad, but there’s not much to be done. He had all the tact of a surgeon who left scissors in a cadaver and told the family, uh, sorry.

“I mean, do we have to regulate everything?” he told a gaggle of reporters.

Well, maybe not. But can we start with heavy machinery falling from the sky during deadly weather events? After all, DeSantis was able to regulate the word “climate” out of state statutes, eschew renewable energy goals and essentially stomp out environmental moves like a lit cigarette just as meteorologists forecast this year’s “extraordinary” hurricane season.

But cranes, that’s a bridge too far.

Let’s review: Hey! Florida! No one cares! No one cares if a giant piece of construction equipment crushes your skull or destroys your business! Maybe that sounds extreme, but, honestly, what are we left to think with hundreds of people out of office and no one in any position of power stepping up to do anything? Not one government agency appears to be investigating what happened. Hardly anyone is asking questions, no one except the developer, not what you’d call a disinterested party.

In its perpetual quest to develop its way out of being God’s Waiting Room, St. Petersburg, we’ve learned, does not have on its big boy pants. Meanwhile, Florida leaders aren’t wearing any pants at all, off somewhere guzzling margaritas on a builder-funded tab.

Reasonable Floridians know this won’t be our last hurricane. Reasonable people know storms are getting stronger and more erratic as Florida buildings are getting taller with no greater regulations. There’s still time to investigate this accident, time to rethink creating mandatory evacuation zones in high-construction areas, time to take another stab at filling in the rule gap between federal standards and whatever happened here.

If not? Hey. At least the luxury residences are safe. As for the people who move into them when they’re open, best of luck.

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