Death toll in Surfside building collapse rises to nine as search continues
Hatzalah paramedics joined by IDF search and rescue team: There is hope
Michael Strongin, a Magen David Adom-certified Hatzalah paramedic in South Florida, was woken up by his wife early Thursday morning in Miami. Strongin had gotten home from the hospital the night before with his newborn son. A few blocks away from his home, he was told, a building had just collapsed.
Leaving his family, he rushed to the scene in Surfside.
“At the edge of the building, I saw couches, bunk beds, furniture – what was remaining of how people had lived their lives,” he told The Jerusalem Post Sunday, recalling the first few minutes at the site of the devastation caused by the collapse of the apartment building.
Since then, Strongin, along with a team of MDA-certified paramedics who are part of the Israel-based volunteer emergency medical services organization, have been providing support to Miami-Dade
Fire Rescue to recover victims of the disaster as well aiding grief-stricken families.
On Sunday, the death toll rose to nine as searchers worked to find more than 150 missing residents amid the rubble of the destroyed building. The death toll was certain to rise as emergency workers in Surfside, a shore town near Miami, were joined by teams from Israel and experts from Mexico.
Another Hatzalah paramedic, one of its directors in South Florida, Baruch Sandhaus, was one of the first on the scene. Hatzalah had gotten two emergency calls from people at the building asking for help, he said.
“Once I arrived on scene, we were able to assess and realize that this is much bigger than the ordinary calls we are accustomed
to seeing here,” Sandhaus said. “We immediately set up a triage site, working together with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue as they were pulling out the initial victims from the collapse. After the first 10 or 15 people came out of the building, most of them walking, they went through our triage site; we assessed, checked and evaluated them.”
According to Sandhaus, about two hours later, a family reunification center was set up at the Surfside Recreation Center. Hatzalah helped treat more than 60 patients for a multitude of medical issues. Hatzalah doctors also helped dispense medication on-site, as many residents of the building had lost all of their possessions, including their medication, at the collapse site.
At the triage center, Strongin also treated patients suffering the mental effects of the tragedy.
“I’ve only ever seen it myself in Israel, ‘nifgaeh harada,’ which is a special type of panic attack,” he said. “I had run a team of EMTs and paramedics during Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 down in Netivot. It was during that time that I had seen the same completely debilitating state of somebody experiencing that ‘harada’ [anxiety], that trembling fear where one shuts down. I saw that here in family members anticipating the worst.”
“With each hour that passed, we felt that the anxiety was building with our members, as we hoped and prayed that there were still people alive down in the building,” Sandhaus said.
On Friday night, Hatzalah and MDA were in touch with the IDF search and rescue experts who were set to head to the scene of the disaster. The emergency delegation from IDF Home Front Command that arrived on Sunday to assist in the search was “hopeful,” Strongin told the Post
“They are looking forward to getting to work and are literally walking across the street right now to get onto the pile,” he said. “I’m looking around and seeing rescuers who have been here for days, and while there’s certainly some physical exhaustion, there is hope. I don’t want to say they’re excited, but they know there’s still a mission to do here, and they know that they’re here for the families and for the people that are hopefully still alive underneath.”
Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai arrived at the scene on Sunday and met with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Shai tweeted: “I arrived straight from the airport to the scene of the disaster in Surfside where I met with Governor @RonDeSantisFL and rescue teams - local and global. I expressed my deep sadness and message that the State of Israel is here to help in any way we can. #SurfsideBuildingCollapse.”
AS THE DEATH toll rose, questions arose about the tower’s structural integrity.
“Everybody that is needed is on the site and doing the work, and we’re continuing our efforts to find people alive,” MiamiDade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told CBS on Sunday.
Officials said they harbored hope that some of the 156 people unaccounted for might be alive. Aided by dogs, sonar, drones and infrared scanning, they hope people can survive in air pockets that may have formed in the debris.
A smoldering fire beneath the rubble that produced thick smoke and hindered the work of rescuers has abated, officials said. A trench was dug to separate the areas of smoking debris from the rest of the rubble, and rescuers are also using tunnels, Levine Cava said.
“The biggest thing now
hope,” Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky said. “That’s what’s driving us. It’s an extremely difficult situation.”
Some families of those missing have provided DNA samples to officials, while others recounted narrow escapes. Police released the names of four victims who ranged in age from 54 to 83.
Champlain Towers South resident Erick de Moura was supposed to be home when the building collapsed, but his girlfriend persuaded him to spend the night at her place less than three km. away in Miami Beach, likely saving his life.
“Only by God. To me this is a miracle,” the 40-year-old Brazil native told Reuters.
Photographs of the missing were posted on a nearby fence, along with flowers and messages. On Saturday, family members prayed and kept a silent vigil at a barrier erected on the beach by authorities several hundred yards north of the building site. They declined to comment.
Some residents remain in the sister building to the one that collapsed, where only a voluntary evacuation order has been issued. A building inspector did not find any immediately obvious problems with the other building.
“Having said that, I don’t know if I’d be comfortable staying in that building,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said, until a comprehensive review was completed.
Miami-Dade County would audit all buildings more than 40 years old within the next 30 days to ensure their safety, officials said Saturday.
Surfside officials have released documents, including an engineer’s report from 2018 that found major structural damage beneath the pool deck and “concrete deterioration” in the underground parking garage of the 12-story condominium.
The report was produced for the Champlain Towers South condominium board in preparation for a major repair project set for this year.
It was not immediately clear whether the damage described in the report was connected to the collapse on early Thursday morning.
Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer who works with the condo association, said the issues outlined in the 2018 report were typical for older buildings in the area and did not alarm the board members, all of whom lived in the tower with their families.
The report estimated it would cost $9.1 million to make the recommended repairs. The board had taken out a $12m. line of credit to pay for the repairs and asked owners to pay $80,000 each, Berger said. Work had started on replacing the roof ahead of hurricane season, and the board was gathering bids for the concrete work, but the pandemic slowed the project, she said.
Satellite data from the 1990s showed the building was sinking one to three mm. per year, while surrounding buildings were stable, according to Florida International University Prof. Shimon Wdowinski.
Gregg Schlesinger, a lawyer and former general contractor who specializes in construction-failure cases, said other factors could have contributed to the collapse. But it was clear to him that the structural issues identified in the 2018 report were the main cause.
Investigations and the inevitable lawsuits will eventually paint a full picture of what caused the disaster, Schlesinger said.
“But we do know one thing: There was a structural failure,” he said. “We know another thing: The structural failure should not have occurred.”
All seaside buildings in the area should be inspected every
five years to ensure they have not been degraded by the corrosive salt air, not just those over 40 years old, Schlesinger said.