Atlanta man says family getting calls from grandparents’ condo

Only static is heard from landline phone in collapsed building.

Arnie and Myriam Notkin had been missing for almost a day when, late Thursday night, their family got an unnerving call.

“We all froze,” said Jake Samuelson, the couple’s grandson. It was the Notkins’ landline phone in apartment 302 of the collapsed Champlain Towers South, he said. The one that sat next to their bed.

But only static came through when his sister picked up, he said. Two days later, that call and the slew that followed remained a mystery.

Samuelson, 23, said he flew to South Florida from Atlanta on Thursday night to join loved ones, feeling a need to see the ruined condo in person.

“We just want answers,” Samuelson said Saturday night. “If it is a sick prank, we want to know if other people are experiencing this. Or if they are in the build

ing, we want to make everyone aware.”

At first, Samuelson said, his family largely dismissed the unsettling call. “My parents went to the building Thursday and saw the damage and just didn’t believe anyone could survive what had happened,” he said. But the calls kept coming. Samuelson, his mother, his aunt and other loved ones went out Friday morning to provide authorities with DNA that could help identify victims, he said. When they got back that afternoon, he said, there were four missed calls from the condo landline: 11:16 a.m.,11:53 a.m.,12:13 p.m., 12:55 p.m. and 1:09 p.m. Then more: 2:59 p.m., 4:33 p.m., 6:13 p.m. Each time, his family tried to answer and got static.

They brought the matter to detectives, Samuelson said, and even their rabbi. Police confirmed that power to the condo was cut, he said, but did not address landlines, which can operate through an outage.

Eventually, they contacted local media. At 9:39 p.m. Saturday, Samuelson said, there was yet another call.

Arnie Notkin, 87, has served his community in all kinds of roles, his grandson said. He was a P.E. teacher in Miami and a Santa for the Surfside police holiday toy drive. “He made a lasting impact on all of his students who still talk about him today,” Samuelson said.

Myriam Notkin, Samuelson’s “abuela,” fled the Castro regime in Cuba as a teenager, working her way up as a banker in the United States, her grandson said. She became a Realtor, too. The Notkins have retired now, he added, but Myriam is “a woman in constant motion.”

When the coronavirus pandemic collided with Arnie’s birthday, Samuelson said, local police and fire officials helped celebrate from afar. The Notkins looked down from their condo balcony at a giant, colorful sign that said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARNIE! WE LOVE YOU.”

Samuelson said his family prays for a miracle and wants to cling to the calls as a hopeful sign rather than a fluke.

But still: “Even if they are real, do they have the capacity to save them? As of now, it seems the answer would be no.”

LYNNE SLADKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS Rescue workers search the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condominium on Saturday in Surfside, Fla. Families frustrated with the slow pace of recovery efforts are said to have demanded they be allowed to go to the scene.

FACEBOOK Jake Samuelson (center) of Atlanta with his grandparents, Myriam and Arnie Notkin, who are among the missing after their condominium in Florida collapsed.