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Employer of missing bridge workers vows to help their families. “They were wonderful people,” exec says.

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With six workers who went missing after the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge now presumed dead, attention is turning to helping their families. 

An executive with Brawner Builders, a general contractor in Hunt Valley, Maryland, told CBS MoneyWatch the workers had company-sponsored life insurance, while declining to disclose details regarding the policies. Separately, a GoFundMe campaign is aiming to raise $60,000 to help their survivors. 

“The company is doing everything possible to support the families and to counsel the families and to be with the families,” Brawner Builders executive vice president Jeffrey Pritzker said.

The six men were filling potholes on the center span of the bridge when a massive cargo ship struck the bridge early Tuesday morning. Originally from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, the Maryland men were living with their families in Dundalk and Highlandtown, according to WJZ media partner The Baltimore Banner. 

So far, three of the missing workers have been identified:

  • Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, originally from Honduras and who has been living in the U.S. for 20 years
  • Miguel Luna, originally from El Salvador
  • Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, originally from Guatemala 

Sandoval, 38, was the youngest of eight siblings from Azacualpa, a rural mountainous area in northwestern Honduras. He had worked as an industrial technician in Honduras, repairing equipment in the large assembly plants, but the pay was too low to get ahead, one of his brothers, Martín Suazo Sandoval, told the Associated Press Wednesday.

“He always dreamed of having his own business,” he said.


What’s known about the 6 missing from Baltimore bridge collapse

07:26

Another brother, Carlos Suazo Sandoval, said Maynor hoped to retire one day back in Guatamala.

“He was the baby for all of us, the youngest. He was someone who was always happy, was always thinking about the future. He was a visionary,” he told the AP by phone Wednesday from Dundalk, Maryland, near the site of the bridge collapse.

Brawner intends to offer financial assistance to the missing workers’ families as they cope with the sudden loss of income, Pritzker said, without providing additional details on the company’s plans.

“They had families, spouses and children, and they were wonderful people who now are lost,” he said, describing the contractor as a tight-knit business where other employees were “very close” to the missing workers. 

“The company is broken,” Pritzker added.

In a statement on Brawner’s website, company owner Jack Murphy wrote that highway construction work is one of the most dangerous occupations in the U.S. 

Construction workers “go out every day on our highways to make things better for everyone,” he said. “Unfortunately, this tragic event was completely unforeseen and was not something that we could imagine would happen.”


Timeline of Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore

01:49

When performing highway work, Brawner always uses employees, rather than contractors, Pritzker said. But the company sometimes works on other projects, such as building schools, that require it to hire subcontractors. 

The GoFundMe campaign for the missing workers’ families was organized by the Latino Racial Justice Circle, an advocacy group that fights racial injustice, and had raised more than $58,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. Brawner Builders is linking to the GoFundMe on its website, directing people who wish to support the families to the fundraising effort. 

“There’s a great deal of other benefits that will be flowing to the families as a result of this tragedy,” Pritzker said, without providing further details. “Of course that can’t replace the lost of their loved ones.” 

—The Associated Press contributed to this report



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1-month-old twins who died with mother believed to be the youngest-known Hurricane Helene victims

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Month-old twin boys are believed to be the youngest known victims of Hurricane Helene. The boys died alongside their mother last week when a large tree fell through the roof of their home in Thomson, Georgia.

Obie Williams, grandfather of the twins, said he could hear babies crying and branches battering the windows when he spoke with his daughter, Kobe Williams, 27, on the phone last week as the storm tore through Georgia.

The single mother had been sitting in bed holding sons Khyzier and Khazmir and chatting on the phone with various family members while the storm raged outside.

Hurricane Helene-Georgia Deaths
This undated photo combo shows from left, Kobe Williams, and her twin sons Khazmir Williams and Khyzier Williams who were killed in their home in Thomson, Ga., by a falling tree during Hurricane Helene on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (Obie Lee Williams via AP)

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Kobe’s mother, Mary Jones, was staying with her daughter, helping her take care of the babies. She was on the other side of the trailer home when she heard a loud crash as a tree fell through the roof of her daughter’s bedroom.

“Kobe, Kobe, answer me, please,” Jones cried out in desperation, but she received no response.

Kobe and the twins were found dead.

“I’d seen pictures when they were born and pictures every day since, but I hadn’t made it out there yet to meet them,” Obie Williams told The Associated Press days after the storm ravaged eastern Georgia. “Now I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”

The babies, born Aug. 20, are the youngest known victims of a storm that had claimed more than 200 lives across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas. Among the other young victims are a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy from about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south in Washington County, Georgia.

“She was so excited to be a mother of those beautiful twin boys,” said Chiquita Jones-Hampton, Kobe’ Jones’ niece. “She was doing such a good job and was so proud to be their mom.”

Jones-Hampton, who considered Kobe a sister, said the family is in shock and heartbroken.

In Obie Williams’ home city of Augusta, 30 miles east of his daughter’s home in Thomson, power lines stretched along the sidewalks, tree branches blocked the roads and utility poles lay cracked and broken. The debris left him trapped in his neighborhood near the South Carolina border for a little over a day after the storm barreled through.

He said one of his sons dodged fallen trees and downed power lines to check on Kobe, and he could barely bear to tell his father what he found.

Many of his 14 other children are still without power in their homes across Georgia. Some have sought refuge in Atlanta, and others have traveled to Augusta to see their father and mourn together, he said.

He described his daughter as a lovable, social and strong woman. She always had a smile and loved to make people laugh, he said.

And she loved to dance, Jones-Hampton said.

“That was my baby,” Williams said. “And everybody loved her.”



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Telecom providers operate emergency communications after Hurricane Helene

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Telecom providers operate emergency communications after Hurricane Helene – CBS News


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When critical infrastructure like utility lines and cell phone towers go down, emergency response teams from telecom providers like AT&T and Verizon step in with an arsenal of equipment ensuring first responders can communicate in a disaster zone. Here’s how that’s helping in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

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Auction offers “Game of Thrones” fans a chance to bid on props, costumes

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Auction offers “Game of Thrones” fans a chance to bid on props, costumes – CBS News


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Five years after HBO’s “Game of Thrones” came to an end, fans have a chance to call part of the hit fantasy series their own. Heritage Auctions opens bidding on more than 2,000 props and costumes from the show starting next week. Dana Jacobson has more.

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