The two people killed when their car crashed into a border checkpoint in Niagara Falls and exploded in a fiery wreck were identified on Friday as a western New York husband and wife whose family owns a lumber business and several hardware stores in the Buffalo area. The Niagara Falls Police Department named the couple as Kurt P Villani and Monica Villani, both 53, of Grand Island, New York, a leafy Buffalo suburb close to the falls. Online business records and the company website indicate the victim\u2019s family owns Gui\u2019s Lumber and seven Ace Hardware locations in western New York, his family operating the business since the mid-1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like to extend our sincere gratitude to all that extended prayers, condolences and well wishes,\u201d the families and the lumber company said in a joint statement released by the Erie County Sheriff\u2019s Office on Friday. \u201cAt this point, we are requesting privacy so we may begin the process of healing.\u201d Authorities have not yet released details on what exactly led to the couple\u2019s crash on Wednesday at the Rainbow Bridge, where their car raced through an intersection, hit a low median and was launched through the air before slamming into a row of security booths and bursting into flames.<\/p>\n
The wreck prompted widespread concern on both sides of the border, as video and images of what appeared to be the aftermath of an explosion began to circulate online and officials closed the bridge and three other crossings in the area. Authorities investigated for several hours before the FBI\u2019s Buffalo office said it found no signs the incident was a terror attack and turned the case over to local police as a traffic investigation. The Niagara Falls Police Department has said the investigation will take time to complete given the complexity of the crash. The agency issued a statement on Friday that named the victims but contained no other details.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City of Niagara Falls would like to extend our sincere condolences to the families as they deal with this tragedy,\u201d the statement read. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has described the crash as \u201csurreal\u201d and said the vehicle was \u201cbasically incinerated\u201d with nothing left but the engine and a scattering of charred debris. \u201cYou actually had to look at it and say, was this generated by AI?\u201d Hochul, a Democrat, said at a news conference Wednesday. \u201cBecause it was so surreal to see. How high in the air this vehicle went, and then the crash, and the explosion, and the fire.\u201d The safety measures tied up traffic at a nearby airport in Buffalo and elsewhere on one of the busiest US travel days of the year, ahead of the American Thanksgiving holiday. The bridges were later reopened.<\/p>\n
About 6,000 vehicles cross the Rainbow Bridge each day, according to the US Federal Highway Administration\u2019s National Bridge Inventory. The short, steel bridge offers scenic views of the falls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The two people killed when their car crashed into a border checkpoint in Niagara Falls and exploded in a fiery\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":13091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3333,3870,3871,895,2723,2415,795,3869,3699,776],"class_list":["post-13090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-accident","tag-border","tag-buffalo","tag-canada","tag-explosion","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-new-york","tag-niagara-falls","tag-rainbow-bridge","tag-us"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}