Rescuers still hoping to discover survivors among wreckage.
Town mayor won’t give up hope on survivors
Florida, Mayor Charles Burkett described an interaction he had with a child awaiting news on one of her parents who were inside Champlain Towers South at the time of the collapse.
The mayor said Monday he had seen the 11- or 12-year-old girl at the disaster site before and came across her again Sunday night after families were allowed onto the wreckage.
“She was reading a Jewish prayer to herself, sitting at the site by where one of her parents presumably is. And that really brought it home to me. She wasn’t crying. She was just lost,” he said.
Much of Monday, the fifth day since part of the condo had fallen, was spent soothing the living, telling them that hope was not lost, that miracles happen.
But the grim reality was that the death toll rose to 11 on Monday after first responders pulled a body from the site. And then there were 150 people who remained missing.
As rescuers sifted through the debris of a collapsed Florida condo building, their meticulous work was hampered by a fire and the smoke it produced.
Workers battled the clock and worsening conditions in the desperate search for survivors. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said rescuers faced “incredible difficulties” because of the flames and smoke coming from “very deep” within the rubble.
The source of the blaze, like the coling lapse, was unknown.
A fire hose blasted one of the lower floors on the north side of the tower as white smoke or steam streamed out, and a bitter, sulfur-like smell hung in the air.
Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah made clear that any talk of moving from a search-and-rescue to a recovery mission is premature.
He said crews had identified additional voids in the rubble where residents could be located, but there was no evidence anyone was inside. They also were listening to sounds coming from the rubble, but none could be identified as from people, he said.
Jadallah said the decision to transition from search and rescue to recovery cannot be made until crews are confident no one could be alive in any part of the rubble.
“There’s a misunderstanding regardSurfside, that everyone believes that the search and rescue operation should cease after a specific time.
“And that’s far from the truth,” Jadallah said.
He said when that grim moment comes “it is not going to be from television, it’s not going to be from an individual down the street.”
At the memorial dedicated to the missing at a nearby corner, community members stopped by to place flowers, leave cards and spend time with the photos of loved ones they fear they may never see again.
“I’m expecting miracles. I’m looking forward to that. We’re praying every day, every minute and we’re not stopping,” Burkett said. “We don’t have a resource problem, at all. We only have a luck problem. And we need to start getting lucky.”