FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) – Construction crews removed one of the two massive cranes that collapsed onto a Fort Lauderdale home, as they continued to make progress in their cleanup efforts.

7News cameras captured crews removing the crane off the front lawn of the house, located along the 800 block of Southeast Eighth Street, Friday morning.

The first crane that was attached to a truck toppled over at around 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, causing extensive damage to the home below.

“Crews, when they got here, they were able to report that a crane had fallen into a house and caused a significant amount of damage to the roof of the structure,” said Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Ariel Alvarez.

Firefighters arrived at the scene within four minutes.

“It’s a shame that I saw this happen. This is a new friend of mine; he just moved into the neighborhood, and he’s been renovating the house,” said a neighbor who identified himself as Mike.

Investigators are still piecing together the reasons for the crane’s collapse.

Mike told 7News he believes the recent stormy weather may have played a role.

“It diluted all the ground and all the structure that was underneath the bricks,” he said.

Moreover, Mike said, this is something that crews should have kept in mind.

“That crane operator, he should’ve known better. At the end of the day, you should never put something, especially, on historic homes’ bricks,” he said. “Keep everything on the road, because that’s where we know the sound structure is.”

But the construction mishaps didn’t end there. As crews were working to extract the fallen crane, a second crane collapsed.

“We have to deconstruct what has taken place here to get it back to a safe situation,” said FLFR Chief Stephen Gollan.

Authorities said they also had to take care of a leaking diesel tank.

“Methodically remove the pieces that have happened, part of that will require cutting the secondary crane, because of the damage to that crane, we won’t be able to retrack that,” said Gollan. “Once that has been removed, then they’ll focus on the initial crane incident and uprighting that crane.”

All day Thursday, neighbors watched as crews took apart the cranes piece by piece.

“My heart goes out to him right now, and his family, because they were just so excited to move into this house, and now they have to deal with this tragedy just because somebody wasn’t really paying attention and doing what they needed to do,” Mike said.

The owner of the crane company gave an official statement regarding the incident:

“We’re relieved that no one was hurt. We’re cooperating with the property owner, authorities and our insurance carrier. The incident is being reviewed, and we can’t comment on details while that process is underway.”

Crews have made progress on the other crane but are still working to remove it as the cleanup continues.

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