TOLL RISES AS FAMILIES’ FRUSTRATION GROWS
At least 9 are dead and 152 are missing as rescuers’ efforts at Champlain Towers South in Surfside continue into a fourth day. Despite reassurances from officials, families are becoming frustrated at the pace of rescue and recovery efforts.
Rescuers have recovered another four bodies in the wreckage of the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse, bringing the total to nine dead and 152 still missing since the Surfside building collapsed early Thursday.
The latest victims were discovered along with “additional human remains” in a 125-foot long trench dug into the rubble to aid rescue and recover teams — the newest tactic in the round-the-clock excavation of an unstable, sometimes shifting mountain of concrete and twisted steel.
At a Sunday evening press conference, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the four more of the dead have been identified, and authorities were notifying families before making the names public.
The mayor said Miami-Dade detectives are having trouble reaching families who might have missing loved ones.
“So if you do not have a police report open, please go to 9301 Collins Ave here in Surfside and speak to a detective on site,” the mayor said.
After days of expressing frustration about the pace of the search and lack of access to the rubble entombing their
loved ones, busloads of family members also were taken to the site Sunday afternoon so they could pray and mourn.
It was clear from helicopter video that the search effort was also ramping up with heavy equipment. At least two cranes and two backhoes were on the scene. But when asked if the mission is going to turn from rescue to recovery, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said no. The heavy equipment is on-site, but “it is going to be a rescue mission for the indefinite future.”
“We are not stopping until we pull every resident out of that rubble,” he said.
While the number of missing people has not been updated, still at 156 unaccounted for, officials said families will be notified directly before additional victim identities are released.
In ongoing developments:
Late Saturday night, officials released the names of three more identified victims: Anthony Lozano, 83, and Gladys Lozano, 79, who lived in apartment 903, and Manuel LaFont, 54, who was in apartment 801. Police identified 54-yearold Stacie Fang, who lived in apartment 1002, on Friday.
Sunday evening, authorities confirmed they had identified four more of the nine confirmed dead, and they were notifying families before releasing names. Relatives of Luis Bermúdez, 26, confirmed on social media that he was among the dead.
The sudden collapse of the occupied condominium is a tragedy that resists easy answers, but several engineering experts
talked to the Herald about the main theories investigators will probably explore, including poor construction, improper maintenance and steel corrosion of the concrete structure. Other experts who reviewed publicly available evidence told the Herald it seemed likely the collapse began at the pool deck before the rest of the building pancaked.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration is on-site at the reunification center to help families apply for all kinds of financial assistance, including relocation costs, costs related to staying in Miami for families waiting for news and funeral expenses. U.S.
Sen. Rick Scott told the Herald FEMA was individually meeting with each family to assess their needs.
FAMILIES GROWING FRUSTRATED
Speaking from the command center early Sunday, Levine Cava said officials are having “very frank conversations” with the families at the reunification
center about the possibility of finding no more survivors.
“The firefighters and others who’ve briefed them are very direct about the situation, that we are continuing to search. We do continue to hope that we find people, but certainly they’re aware that we’re finding remains and even that we’re finding body parts so they’re preparing for that,” Levine Cava told the Miami Herald.
She said families have very detailed questions about where exactly teams are searching in the pile since most of them know the location of their loved ones’ apartments. The pancake-like collapse of the 12-story building, with floors tightly stacked atop each other, has limited access. The trench dug through the pile was intended to open some new areas to search efforts.
“What can I say? It’s a terrible, terrible situation, one in which they’re coming through it with our support,” she added.
Despite reassurances from officials, families are growing frustrated at the pace of rescue and recovery efforts. Burkett said families told him they want “fewer politicians and more answers.”
In a video posted to Instagram, one mother questioned Levine Cava and DeSantis on why an Israeli rescue team wasn’t already on the scene. A Miami-Dade Fire Rescue official said it wasn’t a matter of quantity of quality of the rescue personnel, but there’s a limit to how many works can be on the pile.
Officials acknowledged the frustration while addressing reporters Sunday evening.
“Making sure that we inject and infuse humanity rather than bureaucracy throughout our response, is so incredibly critical,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
A METHODICAL RESCUE EFFORT
Meanwhile, local authorities insist they are still conducting a search and rescue mission. Rescuers have built a deep 125-feet trench underneath
the rubble to aid with their operation. It is 20 feet wide and 40 feet deep, Levine Cava said. Heavier equipment, including additional cranes, have been brought to the scene.
There are six to eight rescue squads on the building’s rubble, with hundreds more on standby.
“We are not lacking any personnel but we have the best,” said Levine Cava.
According to MiamiDade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky, rescuers have not identified any “natural voids” in the rubble, addressing questions on rumors that there are sinkholes in the area of the disaster. He said teams of rescuers will continue following any potential clues that could lead them to finding more residents. At any given time, Castro said there are no less than 50 to 60 rescuers working the pile — an effort going on in 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day.
“We know that we are in a race against time,” Erika Benitez, a spokeswoman for the fire department.
Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue Firefighter Margarita Castro explained that teams are searching within a “methodical grid system” for both survivors and the deceased.
And, because rescuers are still hoping to find people alive, the process is painstaking and delicate.
“The entire situation is a huge challenge,” said Castro, who is also a member of Florida Task Force 1, of the Federal Emergency Management Administration.
“Obviously, we have a very large area of debris and the debris pile that we have to slowly and methodically work our way through,” she said. Even as heavy machinery was removing chunks of rubble, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a Sunday morning press conference that was being preserved in a nearby lot to help solve the mystery of why the building collapsed.
“The debris that’s removed does have forensic value and that’s going to be parsed,” he said.
Asked whether he would back any legislation that would prevent something like the collapse from ever happening again, DeSantis said the priority was finding residents and investigating the cause.
“South Florida has some of the most stringent building codes in the country and so I have a lot of confidence that what’s being built in the here and now are being done very, very well and would be resistant not only to a thing like this but storms,” he said.
He added that he would support changes if investigations into the collapse make it clear new legislation is necessary need to be made.
“We’ve got to do everything we can,” he said.
‘DROWNING IN RESOURCES’
Burkett spoke to media Sunday afternoon, alongside Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Steve Stow, the Vice President of the Miami Heat Charitable Fund.
Orlando Bravo, a Puerto Rican billionaire and cofounder of a private equity investment firm announced he would be joining in the local charities to contribute to SupportSurfside.org, which was created by The Miami HEAT and Miami HEAT Charitable Fund, The Miami Foundation, The Coral Gables Community Foundation, The Key Biscayne Community Foundation and other partners.
Burkett commended the fund for bringing dollars for relocation assistance and other things that don’t fall in the confines of FEMA funding.
“This funding is much more flexible,” Burkett said.
He said he’s spoken to residents who live in the sister building to Champlain Tower South Condo, which he said “probably had the same contractor, probably the same materials.” Those residents will be able to get help staying elsewhere temporarily, he said.
“We have residents asking me if their building was safe,” he said. “I don’t have answers for them. I think those fears are justified.”
He said while the funding is welcome, donations are becoming less needed when it comes to the rescue mission.
“We are drowning in resources,” he said. “We don’t have a resource problem, we have a luck problem. We need better weather and fewer fires.”
El Nuevo Herald writer Syra Ortiz-Blanes and Herald staff writers Samantha J. Gross, Monique O. Madan, Rebecca San Juan, Martin Vassolo and Joey Flechas contributed to this report.