SURFSIDE, Fla. — On the 19th day since the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South, search teams continued to work through the rubble in the effort to find the remains of every last victim.
But torrential rain and elapsed time have slowed the process of finding and identifying victims, bringing delays to an already painstaking process as officials ask the public and victims’ loved ones for patience as their work continues.
After multiple delays due to inclement weather overnight, four more victims were recovered, bringing the death toll in the partial collapse of the 12-story condo tower to 94, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told media Monday morning.
Of those, 83 people have been identified, though “the process of making identifications has become more difficult as time goes on,” she said.
On July 4, the remaining portion of the building was brought down in a controlled demolition and three days later, Levine Cava announced that there was no hope of finding anyone alive in the debris, a decision that shifted the mission from a rescue operation run by the county fire department to a death investigation overseen by Miami-Dade Police.
“The recovery is yielding human remains,” she said Monday.
She said recovery efforts are leaning heavily on the work of the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s office to identify victims by the DNA in their remains, a technical and scientific process that has become more meticulous with each passing day.
There are people who are deceased that may still be on the list of the 22 potential missing, because they have not yet been identified.
Levine Cava acknowledged that families are “in anguish” awaiting the identification of their loved ones, and asked that the community continue to keep them in mind.
“The process is methodical and careful, and it does take time,” she said.
NO TIMELINE YET
On Monday, Levine-Cava said while the timeline for clearing the site is still unclear, they project the window to extend 14 to 21 more days, “but hopefully on the shorter side of that.”
“We are making great progress on the pile ... no specific timeline,” she said.
Twelve million tons of concrete have been removed as of Sunday, she said, but workers continue to dig, delayer and access lower portions of the building.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told media Saturday that the pace of the operation makes it “very likely that the site will be clear sooner than expected.”
SECURITY TIGHTENED ON SITE
Officials said Monday they would tighten security around the site of the collapse, citing the long wait families have endured and their requests to retrieve items from the collapse site.
Most items recovered from the rubble are put into boxes and taken to a warehouse to be inspected by detectives for evidence of what may have caused the collapse.
“We’ve always had it secure, but we really want to make sure,” Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez told reporters. “There’s a lot of emotion ... As families are being notified about their family members, the ask is always about property. People want some sort of connection with their family member, so it’s very important that our process that we have in place continues to flow uninterrupted.”
He stressed that the added security was not caused by any breach of the law, but due to the “long, painful, hurtful process” families and detectives are going through. He said detectives have set up a makeshift property room and are sifting meticulously through the personal items found at the site. The goal, he said, is to give families closure down the road.
“There’s no criminality here, not at all. It’s just, you know, we’re 19 days into it, there’s still families that are sitting there. There’s still families that are now recalling things. Nobody has done anything criminal it’s just part of the process.”
COVID-19 SCARE
After Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz and his aide tested positive for COVID-19, Levine Cava said “everybody who’s come in close proximity has been tested using both rapid and longer-term tests.”
Some reporters at the media briefing were wearing face masks.
“We have been fully tested,” she said.
