Hope dwindling
Risky Surfside condo rescue turns up no other survivors so far
Families hoped for miracles Friday as the arduous rescue operation at the collapsed Surfside condo tower continued into its second day.
Using heavy machinery, microphones and search dogs, exhausted rescue workers labored under heavy rain to find survivors in the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo. Another fire broke out Friday afternoon in the part of the building that was still standing, producing heavy smoke.
But so far Friday, their work turned up no survivors. The death toll rose to four and was expected to continue climbing, with the number of missing standing at 159.
At a family reunification center set up at the Grand Beach Hotel, the crowd was noticeably smaller than it was Thursday.
“I believe in God’s faith and miracles and the power of prayer,” said Magaly Ramsey, whose mother Magaly Delgado is missing, outside the reunification center. “And I have so many family and friends praying.
“I hope for the best, but at the same time if she has left this Earth, she’s in peace and in God’s arms. And that’s a good outcome in that way and she didn’t feel anything.”
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Cava, speaking at a Friday afternoon news conference, said the death toll remained at four and the number of people accounted for climbed from 120 to 127.
The number unaccounted for remained at 159, although this does not necessarily mean they had been in the building at the time.
The first victim to be identified was Stacie Fang, 54, whose son had been rescued after being heard yelling from under the rubble, according to WSVN-Ch. 7, which cited the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner. She died at Aventura Hospital from blunt force injuries.
Outside the family reunification center, Sergio Barth waited for news of his brother Luis, Luis’ wife Catalina Gomez and their teenage daughter Valeria, who were visiting the U.S. from Colombia. They had been in a second-floor apartment when the tower collapsed.
“We were really close,” Barth said. “That was my only brother and my only niece.”
All he can do, he said, is hope.
“Trusting in God,” he said. “Any miracle, not only for me [but] for all the families suffering the same.”
The crowds at the site swelled Friday evening, with volunteers distributing water, peanuts and sandwiches to police officers, journalists and onlookers.
Two prayer groups assembled, among them an eight-member contingent from Calvary Chapel Miami who came to offer encouragement to the rescuers.
“We’re very blessed to be there to pray over the officers and fire department detail,” said group member Erica Sommer.
Rabbi Laivi Forta of Aventura Chabad synagogue said Friday afternoon he was “praying for a miracle” with seven members and relatives of members still missing.
“Just tragic, tragic, tragic,” Forta said. “Devastating.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis said the residents and the people of Florida deserved to know how a building could just collapse.
“We need a definitive explanation for how this could have happened,” he said Friday in a news conference near the site. “And that’s an explanation that needs to be an accurate explanation. It’s an explnation that we don’t want to get wrong, obviously, but at the same time I think it’s important that it’s timely.”
President Joe Biden said he spoke with DeSantis and that the federal government is providing all help possible.
“We’re going to stay with them with the disaster declaration we made, provide for everything from housing to, God forbid, whether there’s a need for moratoria for the bodies to be placed,” Biden said at an event in Washington. “It’s a tough, tough time. There’s so many people waiting.”
FEMA deployed an incident management assistance team to Florida and is sending building science experts, search and rescue technical experts and a mobile command center, the White House said. FEMA national urban search and rescue system teams have been placed on alert.
Miami-Dade Mayor Cava said at a Friday morning news conference that rescue crews were working at “extraordinary risk” of injury from debris in the hope of finding survivors.
“We will continue search and rescue because we still have hope there are people alive,” she said.
The cause of the building’s collapse remained a mystery, although theories included the instability of the slowly sinking land on the site.
The first lawsuit over the collapse has been filed, on behalf of Manuel Drezner, owner of a 10th-floor condo, who was not in the build ing at the time, according to Brad Sohn, one of his lawyers.
Records show Drezner shared apartment 1009, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, with his wife.
“He wasn’t there at the unit — which saved his life,” Sohn said.
Sohn said he is likely to add other clients and claims.
The suit cited public statements made Thursday by condo association attorney Ken Direktor, who told the New York Times that an engineer hired for the condo’s 40-year inspection had spotted damaged concrete and rusted steel. But Direktor also said there was no suggestion those problems prompted the collapse.
Direktor did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Condo association lawyer Donna DiMaggio Berger told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the Champlain Towers South condo was undergoing roof work at the time of its partial collapse after an engineer who conducted its 40-year inspection made it a priority because the 2021 hurricane season began.
“The roof was the first because we’re in a hurricane season,” DiMaggio Berger said. “If the roof flies off, we’re not having a building.”
Berger said a preliminary report from the building’s inspection had been compiled by the engineer and submitted to the City of Surfside, which had not indicated that any additional testing was needed.
There is no indication that the roof work had anything to do with the collapse, DiMaggio Berger said.
She denounced a lawsuit filed Thursday against the association as “despicable,” saying its vice president is still missing and the president narrowly escaped the building alive.
Referring to attorney Sohn, she said, “So Mr. Brad Sohn has managed to figure out what’s going on — even though FEMA doesn’t know and the county doesn’t know? But he has somehow figured this out?”
Rescue workers are listening for sounds from the rubble that could indicate survivors, said Raide Jadallah, assistant MiamiDade County fire chief.
“It’s not specifically human sounds,” he said. “It could be tapping, it could be steel twisting, it could be debris raining down.
“We have hope. And every time that we hear a sound, we concentrate in that area. So we send additional teams utilizing the devices, utilizing K-9, utilizing personnel.”
Anguished family members entered a second day of waiting, as hope diminished of finding many survivors.
“I’m really, really hoping they’re just under the debris, and they’re maybe unconscious or maybe they just need medical attention, obviously,” Jenny Urgelles told WSVN-Ch. 7, as she awaited word of her parents, Mercy and Ray Urgelles.
“I’m holding onto hope, I really am. I’m hoping that even if it takes them a couple hours, a couple days, they do find them.
“I’m very just desperate to know what’s happening.”
Rabbi Raphael Tennenhaus, director of the Chabad of South Broward in Hallandale Beach, was praying his wife’s sister and her husband would still be found alive.
“We are praying that God Almighty delivers big miracles,” he said.
Among the missing are the owners of Fiorelli, an upscale men’s clothing store in Weston. They include Angela Velasquez and her husband Julio, as well as their daughter Theresa Velasquez.
At the family reunification center, volunteers distributed free water and kosher meals, which helped Jewish family members who didn’t want to leave the center.
“Someone who doesn’t eat kosher can eat kosher, but people who eat kosher can’t touch food that is not kosher,” said Joe Zevuloni, a Broward County business owner who helped mobilize the volunteer effort.
One woman pulled her teenage daughter from the wreckage Thursday, despite having broken her pelvis, according to CBS4 Miami.
Angela Gonzalez fell from the ninth floor to the fifth floor along with her 16-year-old daughter Devon but was able to rescue her child. They were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Several groups have set up web sites to raise funds for the victims.
Among them are theshul. org/8777 and supportsurfside.org, sites that were shared by Cava and DeSantis at their Friday news conferences.
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose district includes Surfside, said the White House would grant all of the requests for resources for families and the local governments.
Cleanup costs, housing assistance and funeral services are all expenses the federal government is ready to pay, the White House and Wasserman Schultz said. Since many residents came from other countries, Wasserman Schultz said officials are working to get visas processed quickly for family members overseas.
The missing include at least 34 Jewish people, in a part of the Miami coast that’s within walking distance of five synagogues. It also includes nine Argentines, according to the Argentine Consulate in Miami, and includes six citizens of Paraguay, including siblings of that country’s first lady, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believes that 20 citizens of that country are missing.
Argentines Dr. Andres Galfrascoli, his husband, Fabian Nuñez, and their adopted 6-year-old daughter Sofia had spent Wednesday night there at an apartment belonging to a friend, Nicolas Fernandez, according to the Associated Press.
Galfrascoli, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, and Nuñez, a theater producer and accountant, had come to Florida to get away from COVID-19 in Argentina and its strict lockdowns.
“Of all days, they chose the worst to stay there,” said their friend, Nicolas Fernandez . “I hope it’s not the case, but if they die like this, that would be so unfair.”
Also missing was Arnie Notkin, a retired Miamiarea elementary school physical education teacher, and his wife, Myriam, according to AP. They lived on the third floor.
“Everyone’s been posting, ‘Oh my God, he was my coach,’ ” said Fortuna Smukler, a friend who turned to Facebook in hopes of finding someone who would report them safe.
“They were also such happy, joyful people,” Smukler said. “He always had a story to tell, and she always spoke so kindly of my mother. Originally there were rumors that he had been found, but it was a case of mistaken identity.
“It would be a miracle if they’re found alive.”