BOISE, Idaho — Businesses and leaders around the Treasure Valley announced the launch of the Rebuilding Together Fund that will raise money for the 12 victims injured and killed in the Boise Airport hangar collapse on Jan. 31.
A news conference on Feb. 15 at the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce revealed the fund's donors as Industrial Builders in Caldwell and Republic Storage.
Industrial Builders in Caldwell and local developer, Dick Phillips, are contributing $50,000 to the fund and an additional $50,000 was donated by Republic Storage, totaling the fund to $100,000.
"I've been in the construction industry for 35 years. And I could just relate to the fact of such a tragedy if it happened to our company," said Industrial Builders of Caldwell's President Dave Erlebach. "I thought, how can we possibly help these people get through this? And I just couldn't sit back and I said, how sorry, do I feel? And I said, I feel $50,000 Sorry. And I want to start something to help these people get through this tough time in their lives."
Erlebach said he hopes others in the community will consider donating to the fund.
"You can all sit back and say I feel sorry. Okay. But that does not help the victims, you know, I think what helps them is is cash to pay their mortgages and rents, cash to help them through," Erlebach said.
$50,000 was already donated to the injured victims and Erlebach said he hopes the rest of the money will also help the families in Guatemala of the Men that were killed in the collapse.
Furthermore, a fundraiser dinner and auction is scheduled for Saturday, March 2 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Banbury Golf Club in Eagle.
Funds raised at the dinner will go directly into the Rebuilding Together Fund for redistribution.
It was iterated that questions regarding the incident, investigation or any associated details will not be addressed.
The public can donate to the Rebuilding Together Fund and get more information here.
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Hangar collapse incident
On Wednesday, Jan. 31, three men died when the airport hangar collapsed as construction workers were active on site. Nine other people were injured in the incident. The last update provided on those injured, was that five of the nine were in critical condition.
Mario Sontay Tzi, 32, Mariano Coc Och, 24, and Craig Durrant, 59, died from blunt force trauma sustained when the hangar that was being constructed at the time collapsed.
According to Idaho Secretary of State records, Big D Builders was the construction company building the hangar at the time of the collapse. The brother of Big D Builders' owner was among the dead.
Inland Crane was hired to assist Big D Builders in the building construction. According to a statement from Jeremy Haener, Vice President of Inland Crane, a crane was working to place an end truss when the hangar collapsed "due to an unknown structural failure."
Haener said the crane boom snapped on impact. Inland Crane originally had four cranes at the location to build the hangar, but the steel erection contractor requested for three of the cranes to be removed with a majority of the work done by Wednesday afternoon.
The families of two of the men killed have since hired legal representation.
"Justice will be served for the grieving families of Mario and Mariano (Alex)," Enrique Serna of Serna & Associates said.
KTVB will provide the latest information regarding this story and the ongoing OSHA investigation as information becomes available.
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