SURFSIDE, Fla. — After an early morning thunderstorm gave way to sunshine, Rosana Esther Lerman didn't miss her 8 a.m. beach walk on Monday, but the last few days haven't been the same as before.
Lerman, dressed in black athletic gear and standing at a white plastic barrier erected on the beach at about 90th street, recalled how she used to see her friend, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brad Cohen, leave the Champlain Towers condo complex every day to drive to work.
It wasn't until she saw the pile of debris on Thursday morning that she realized she wouldn't be seeing him that day. Now, Cohen is one of the 152 people unaccounted for in the tragedy. So far, officials have only confirmed nine deaths. Of those, eight people have been identified.
Late Sunday, officials identified the latest four people recovered: Leon Oliwkowicz, 80, who lived in unit 704; Luis Bermúdez, 26, who lived on the seventh floor; Ana Ortiz, 46, Bermúdez's mother; and Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74.
Cohen has not been identified as one of the dead, but Lerman knew something was wrong when she didn't see him on his morning beach walk Thursday.
"I didn't see him, and I knew he is staying in that building," Lerman said. "People have their routines."
Those morning exchanges with her friend are just one of the routines upended for Lerman and her family after the collapse. Her twin 9-year-old daughters have been unable to sleep through the night, and neither has she.
Lerman lives in an even older condominium building, about 10 blocks north. Lately, she's been roaming the parking garage, looking for signs that her condo tower could be next. She said she plans to take pictures with her phone of things that concern her and send them to the mayor of Bal Harbour, where she lives.
"I'm really worried about the way the buildings have been reviewed by the city and the way the condominiums have been handling those reviews," Lerman said, adding that her own building had issues that came up in the 40-year-review a few years ago that led to roofing repairs.
Sunday evening, the Miami Herald revealed that Surfside's chief building official told the Champlain Towers condo board the building was in "very good shape" a month after a preliminary engineer's report revealed "major structural damage." The report showed no indication that a collapse was possible, but it did hint at nearly $10 million worth of repairs.
Lerman said she's not alone in her fears — lots of the people who live in her building are getting more concerned.
"There are a lot of cracks in my building," Lerman said. "I see a lot of cracks, and corrosion. I'm not an engineer, but I know that's not right."
Just feet away from her, an engineer who happened to be on the beach that day staring at the collapse site raised similar concerns. Martin, who asked not to be identified by his full name, is the chief engineer of a local hotel, and he said many of the condo towers on the shoreline are potentially dangerous.
"This is not new," he said. "We know what it is. ... The pressure of the ocean, the temperature, the humidity. It's a beautiful view, but they don't realize what it does to the structure."
Martin said that 40-year inspections are too long an interval buildings should be reviewed every 10 or 20 years. Engineers who work in the buildings are the first to see cracks and corrosion, he said, but then they have to go up a chain of command: reporting the issues to managers, who then consult structural engineers, and they report to the condo association boards.
That was a process that simply took too long for Martin.
"It's like a cancer," the engineer said. "We have to act fast."
