A window -- being replaced by a crew atop a 32-floor high rise -- plunged to the street in San Francisco on Friday morning, raining glass and debris down onto one motorist’s car and cracking windows across the street, authorities said.
No one was injured in the 8:15 a.m. incident, although the motorist reportedly said later that he was lucky he survived.
Witnesses working inside the Salesforce East building told NBC Bay Area that they heard crashing sounds from above and then saw pieces of window raining down from the rooftop of the high rise at 350 Mission St.
Fragments not only struck the motorist’s car, but triggered cracks on one of the windows on the first floor of the Millennium Tower, across Mission.
San Francisco building authorities said they intended to issue a notice of violation against the Salesforce East building stemming from the incident.
It appears the latest Salesforce incident may have roots in last year’s windstorms.
In March 2023, the Salesforce East building suffered window breaks and other damage that experts tied to flying debris from an open window that had just failed on the 49th floor of the Millennium Tower.
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San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who pushed for comprehensive window inspections after a total of seven high rises reported wind related window failures, said the latest incident happened as a crew was using a roof-mounted crane to take away a damaged window being replaced.
“A contractor made a mistake,” Peskin said. “Thank God that nobody got hurt.”
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Peskin said that police notified him about what happened to the motorist, who later reported that his car was totaled in the incident.
Witnesses told NBC Bay Area that they heard crashing sounds from shards as they first hit the side of the Salesforce East itself.
“It’s a huge window,” said James Looper, an IT professional with Sephora, which has offices in Salesforce East. He said he was in a meeting on the sixth floor when he heard what sounded like the impact of a brick hitting the building.
“It was shocking to see what was going on. Because you heard it coming and more pieces kept on falling down behind it,” he said, “so it was already broken by the time it came by my window.”
After the crashing stopped, he looked down and saw glass was now littering the street below his office.
“There was glass all over. Literally everywhere – it was like an explosion,” Looper said. “It was hitting the windows and hitting the building on the way down.”
Looper said the crew – which had been doing window replacement work for several days – was dealing with wind gusts.
“They’ve been up there replacing windows, working really hard,” he said. “They are working on a really, really tall building – it’s a scary thing, so – I hope they’re okay.”
