The sky was falling

Sydney had its Chicken Little moments just before Christmas as alarms sounded and things seemed about to fall from the sky.

Nothing to do with Paris
Early one morning, two days before Christmas a window in a guest’s room was found shattered high up in the Hilton Hotel in Pitt St. The broken glass was held together only by its protective coating. Police went into action by 8am and evacuated Pitt St between Park and Market while engineers were called in to push the glass in from the outside. Police say shards of glass still fell into the street during the emergency.

A crowd of onlookers and media quickly gathered outside the police cordon, staring or pointing at the sky, which attracted yet more people.

Perhaps most inconvenienced were the guys from the Full House Japanese Restaurant who were caught on their way to work with a load of produce from the markets. They faced a patient wait of several hours squatting on the footpath guarding their goods. Christmas shoppers were also stymied and the Monorail had to suspend service. The street was cleared at 2pm.

Be alarmed but not alarmed
While this was going on a planned test of the CBD public emergency alarm system was conducted. Loudspeakers mounted on lightpoles at key intersections burst into life at 12.15pm with an announcement that this was a test, a short burst of a throaty sounding but very loud siren and a short ‘thank you’ message. Security officials were on hand to monitor the test but pedestrians took it in their stride. The tests will occur monthly.

Crane panic
Reports from a resident that a construction crane was moving sparked another evacuation in Potts Point on 29 December. A large crane on the site of the old Kings Cross Waxworks, engaged in building a block of units, appeared to be leaning slightly towards a row of stately Art Deco apartment buildings in Springfield Ave.

Police evacuated the whole street and called in WorkCover, the crane’s operator and its builder. Residents including Cynthia and Len Warrington, who had moved in to their apartment only ten days earlier, found themselves with several hours to kill in Kings Cross. Local coffee shops were busy.

Kings Cross police said it turned out there was no problem with the crane in the first place. Cranes of this nature were built on a slight lean so they straightened up when carrying a load, assisting the counterweights to stabilise the structure. Cranes built inside towers under construction or against the side of a building, however, were built on a true vertical.