BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Workers had expressed concerns about bending or bowed beams and structural issues before a steel airport hangar under construction in Idaho collapsed in January, killing three people and injuring nine others, a newspaper reported.

Some employees told the site’s supervisor of their worries a day before the privately owned and partially built hangar collapsed Jan. 31 on the grounds of the Boise Airport, according to police reports released to the Idaho Statesman through a public records request.

Meridian-based contractor Big D Builders was the general contractor of the $8.1 million, 39,000-square-foot hangar for Jackson Jet Center at the airport.

Inland Crane of Boise provided equipment and operators for the project, and that company’s supervisor told police he “has worked a crane on several of these types of sites, and the ‘bowing’ of the beam did not look right to him.”

The supervisor told the police he had reported the concerns to Big D Builders co-founder Craig Durrant, one of three victims in the collapse, and that Durrant said he had made calls to an engineer.

Dennis Durrant, Craig’s brother and company owner, told police in an interview that the beams were “bowing.” They contacted the manufacturer because the supports for the frame weren’t “adequate,” according to the police documents.

An engineer gave them guidance to reinforce the building, Durrant told officers.

The police interviews indicate Craig Durrant told the crane supervisor that the frame was fine after speaking to the engineer because workers added straps on the beams. They were also trying to place more beams to support the roof.

The Durrant brothers were in the center of the site when they heard loud popping noises, according to the police reports. They ran for the perimeter but Dennis Durrant told police the building “came down within seconds,” killing his brother. Also killed in the collapse were two construction workers, Mario Sontay Tzi , 32, and Mariano “Alex” Coc Och, 24.

Several Inland Crane employees also told their company’s safety officer about “structural integrity concerns” for the hangar, according to the police interviews.

“He also confirmed multiple crane operators from Inland Crane reported curved beams and snapped stiffener cables,” police wrote.

The hangar’s overhead beams were not straight, and there were not enough cross-sections to support the overhead beams, another crane operator told officers.

Yet another crane operator told police the cranes were brought to the construction site to “straighten out the hangar because portions of it were bending.”

A woman who answered the phone Wednesday at Big D Builders said owner Dennis Durrant declined to comment to The Associated Press.

However, David Stark, Big D Builders superintendent general contractor, maintained that there weren’t any problems at the site, and that he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, the Statesman reported.

Boise police turned its information over to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has said its investigation could take up to six months.

Inland Crane Vice President Jeremy Haener has previously said no action by Inland Crane operators or the crane itself were cause for the structure’s failure, based on the accounts of workers on the site and the steel erecting contractor.

“Inland Crane is actively participating in the OSHA investigation around the tragic incident that occurred on a Boise job site on Jan. 31,” Haener said in a statement Tuesday. “Out of respect for the integrity of that process, we have no additional statements to make until that review is completed.”

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SHORELINE, Wash. (AP) — A construction-company owner and a worker have been identified as the people killed in a trench collapse Monday just north of Seattle in Shoreline.

The Seattle Times reports David Ameh, 66, and Demetrius Seller, 32, died from suffocation during the collapse, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office announced. They were trying to replace a damaged sewer connection.

Ameh owns Peacefield Construction, which is based near Seattle and started in 2012, according to business license records. The state Department of Labor and Industries will investigate the incident, which generally takes six months.

The bodies of Ameh and Seller were recovered early Wednesday by the Shoreline Fire Department and partners who used hand tools, a vacuum hose, and protective metal boxes to reach them in unstable soil.

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An Umatilla County construction worker reportedly died from a heat-stroke-related illness amid the record-breaking heatwave.

James Anfeldt, 47, of Spokane, was found by his 6-year-old son in his trailer at Panelview RV Park in Hermiston on June 24, according to Umatilla County Medical Examiner.

The Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office responded to the report of the son requesting medical assistance. Deputies found Anfeldt dead on the floor in the trailer at 6:30 p.m. June 24. By that time, Anfeldt’s trailer had reached about 130 degrees, the East Oregonian reported.

Anfeldt had been working as a construction worker in Pendleton. He had hypertension, a condition that him vulnerable to the heat, the medical examiner said. The cause of death was external hyperthermia-overheating.

The medical examiner told  that Anfeldt had “worked all day on a construction project in Pendleton and was already dehydrated and goes to sleep without AC and pretty much collapses headed to the bathroom.”

Temperatures in Hermiston and Pendleton on June 24 were in the 90s, according to the National Weather Service in Pendleton.

Oregon’s death toll from last week’s record-breaking heatwave has risen to 116, according to the Associated Press. Many of the victims had no air conditioner or fans and died alone.

Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday directed agencies to study how Oregon can improve its response to heat emergencies. She also enacted emergency rules to protect workers from extreme heat after a farm laborer collapsed and died June 26 at a nursery in rural St. Paul, Oregon.

Seattle, Portland many other cities broke all-time heat records, with temperatures reaching above 115-degrees Fahrenheit in some places.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Debris fell from a supertall skyscraper nearing completion in New York City as the top of a crane spun in the wind Thursday evening, but no one was injured, officials said.

Video posted to social media showed the top of the crane revolving in a full circle in rainy weather at the building, which has topped out at over 1,400 feet, on West 57th Street in Manhattan.

Fire officials said they started operations at the building shortly before 7 p.m. The Buildings Department sent inspectors. Traffic was shut down in the area, and subway trains were rerouted.

The crane is stable and is being evaluated, Buildings Department spokesperson Andrew Rudansky said in an email. The crane is designed to spin in the wind, he said, but inspectors are trying to determine what caused debris to fall.

There were no official details on what the debris consisted of.

The skyscraper was developed by JDS Construction Group. A message was left with the company.

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HOUSTON (AP) — The bodies of three workers who were killed when a stairwell collapsed inside a high-rise building under construction were recovered Wednesday, the Houston Fire Department said.

Firefighters spent several hours cutting through and removing material from a three-story high pile of debris to get to the bodies, said Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Michael Mire.

The stairwell was undergoing construction when it collapsed somewhere around the 13th or 14th floor on Monday afternoon. The debris pile collapsed all the way down to the ground floor, injuring another worker.

Firefighters and engineers spent Tuesday assessing the building’s structural integrity before determining that it was safe for rescuers to go in and remove the victims, Mire said.

The cause of the stairwell collapse is still being investigated. Authorities have not released the identities of the dead workers.

The 15-story office building, situated near Interstate 10 on the city’s westside, is set to be the new headquarters of Houston-based Marathon Oil. Employees were expecting to move into the building in the second half of 2021.

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HOUSTON (AP) — Three workers were killed Monday when a stairwell collapsed inside a high-rise building under construction in Houston, according to fire department officials.

The fire department said one injured worker was taken to a hospital and was listed in stable condition.

Firefighters were waiting for engineers to confirm the building was stable enough for them to go in and recover the bodies of the workers, said Assistant Fire Chief Ruy Lozano. It could be several days before their bodies are recovered, he said.

Authorities were not concerned that the building itself was in danger of collapsing but were “worried about sections of that same stairwell that collapsed the first time,” Lozano told reporters during a news conference.

The stairwell was undergoing construction when it collapsed somewhere around the 13th or 14th floor at about 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Lozano said.

“The debris pile collapsed all the way down to the ground floor,” Lozano said.

The 15-story office building, located near Interstate 10 on the city’s westside, is set to be the new headquarters of Houston-based Marathon Oil. Employees were set to move into the building in the second half of 2021.

Marathon Oil did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The building is located across the street from a series of multi-story apartment complexes and is also north of a popular shopping district that has retail stores and restaurants.

Authorities said 240 workers were at the construction site and all have been accounted for, Lozano said.

It was not immediately known what caused the partial building collapse. Houston police were investigating the cause of the collapse.

The names of the workers who were killed and injured were not being released until their families had been notified, Lozano said.

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By PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Two cranes collided Wednesday at a construction site in Austin, Texas, causing one of them to partially collapse and injuring at least 22 workers who were sent scrambling for safety, authorities said.

The cranes collided and got tangled several stories above a building under construction a few miles north of downtown in a rapidly growing neighborhood that includes residential, retail and office space.

The development also includes a children’s hospital near the accident site.

Austin-Travis County EMS spokesman Darren Noak said at a news conference that 22 workers were hurt, including 16 who were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries. The cause of the accident was still under investigation.

Most of the injuries occurred when workers scrambled away from the accident scene, Noak said.

One of the crane operators was still inside the crane cabin about 150 feet above the ground more than an hour after the accident, though that crane didn’t appear to be damaged. Authorities said the operator was safe and that rescuers would go get him if necessary, but that his presence was helping to stabilize the crane.

“He’s fine,” Fire Department Capt. Mark Bridge said. “There’s no danger to him.”

He said the cranes’ bases were stable and that investigators didn’t believe they were in danger of falling over.

Diane Stewart, who lives near the construction site, said she heard the collision while out for a walk.

“I heard a crash. It was like pipes falling,” Stewart said. “The police, first-responders were here in minutes.”

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KLAMATH FALLS — Police say a road construction flagger was killed in southern Oregon when a motorist struck him in a highway construction zone.

Oregon State Police say 45-year-old Daniel Wessel was hit and pronounced dead at the scene along Highway 140 East in Klamath County on Tuesday evening.

Police say the preliminary investigation shows that 38-year-old Zahara Gonzales of Klamath Falls was driving a Mazda west on the highway when she entered the construction zone and the vehicle struck Wessel.

The circumstances of the crash — including whether Gonzales was speeding, impaired or distracted — are under investigation.

A state police spokesman told the Oregonian/OregonLive Wednesday that Gonzales has not been arrested. A person who answered the phone at Wessel’s employer, Rocky Mountain Construction, declined to comment.

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By JAKE BLEIBERG
Associated Press

DALLAS (AP) — Authorities have identified 29-year-old Kiersten Symone Smith as the woman who was killed when a crane fell on a Dallas apartment building Sunday amid severe thunderstorms that also uprooted mature trees and left thousands without power across the city.

Smith was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to the Dallas County Medical Examiners’ office, after the construction crane smashed into a five-story building near downtown destroying peoples’ apartments and reducing parts of an adjacent parking garage to a pile of concrete and mangled cars.

The cause of Smith’s death has not been determined. Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans could not provide an update on the condition of the five people injured in the collapse.

The crane fell around 2 p.m. as storms ripped across parts of Oklahoma and Texas, bringing high winds, heavy rain and hail that flooded streets and caused power outages. Wind gusts up to 71 mph were measured at Dallas Love Field airport, said National Weather Service meteorologist Patricia Sanchez.

Heavy rain and winds up to 80 mph also cut through the Austin area, blowing down tree branches and gas station canopies, said meteorologist Bob Fogarty.

Sanchez said a crew was going out Monday to determine the intensity of a reported tornado that damaged houses in Copperas Cove, located about 75 miles north of Austin. A city fire official said about 200 homes were damaged and three of those are uninhabitable.

“The sun was out, and then all of a sudden a wind came in, it got dark, the lights went off, and once the lights got off then the wind started blowing,” Copperas Cove resident Erasmus Julien told the Killeen Daily Herald.

Oncor, Texas’ largest electricity provider, said early Monday that their crews were working around-the-clock to restore electricity in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The company said that at the peak more than 350,000 of their customers were without power, and more than 130,000 have since had it restored.

As of late Monday morning, almost 500 traffic signals were inoperable across Dallas, and about 170 were flashing red lights, according to the city.

At the Elan City Lights building damaged by the crane, fire crews were escorting evacuated residents back inside to retrieve their possessions, as city workers and Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials ponder how to remove the crane embedded in the structure’s east side.

A spokesman for the federal agency confirmed it’s investigating the crane’s collapse but declined to provide further comment.

Bigge Crane and Rigging Co., which owns the downed crane, had representatives in Dallas Monday to assist and cooperate with OSHA’s investigation, said Randy Smith, the California-based equipment rental company’s lawyer.

AP staff writers Jamie Stengle contributed reporting from Dallas and Clarice Silber contributed reporting from Austin.

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WINSTON, Ore. (AP) — Authorities say a 57-year-old man died in an industrial accident at a logging site south of Eugene.

The World reports someone called 911 at about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday requesting medical help for a man who was injured while working on a piece of equipment.

Richard Allen Smith of Tenmile died at the scene.

The Douglas County Medical Examiner’s Office is investigating the death.

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