SURFSIDE, Fla. — Four more victims of the Surfside condo collapse were recovered overnight and into the day Friday, said Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, raising the death toll to 22 as rescue workers continued the search amid the threats of shifting rubble underfoot, falling debris overhead and a hurricane in the forecast.
The mayor also said during a late afternoon briefing that she signed off on the demolition of the standing remains of the Champlain Towers South building. Engineers are considering a pair of options. One would be a controlled blow that would halt the rescue effort for only a few hours. Another would take more time and involves using large cranes to haul away chunks of the building.
The mayor said the demolition isn’t likely to happen until late July as staff works on planning, approvals and site work.
“We’d prefer it fall in a controlled manner. But we may not have that opportunity,” Levine Cava said. “I understand getting it done in that period of time would be unprecedentedly fast.”
During the morning briefing Friday, Levine Cava also shared the crushing news that one of the four victims recovered was the 7-year-old daughter of a city of Miami firefighter. The mayor said pulling the child from the wreckage was especially difficult for the rescuers who have been toiling in the heat and rain now for nine days.
“It was truly different and more difficult for our first responders,” Levine Cava said.
The challenges facing first responders remain daunting. Thunderstorms and intermittent downpours have destabilized the two-story pile of crushed concrete and steel, while cracks and shifting debris threaten to topple the unstable portion of the tower that remains upright.
Despite pressure from Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett to demolish the building sooner rather than later — even possibly ahead of approaching Hurricane Elsa — Levine Cava seems to be heeding advisers who are urging her to wait a few weeks.
“If the building is a problem, we need to eliminate the problem,” Burkett said.
Countered Levine Cava: “We are proceeding quickly. But we cannot bring that building down without a very, very careful demolition plan,” she said.
Search and rescue teams were forced to pause their work for 15 hours Thursday, until structural engineers determined it was safe to dig again. The pause exasperated families of the missing. Some asked emergency managers Friday morning if they could confirm that rescuers had heard voices in the rubble.
On a video of a private meeting between county leaders and grieving family members that was posted on social media Friday, Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said the lone voice heard by rescuers was from a woman trapped under rubble the morning of the collapse on June 24. The chief said the team’s failure to save her life had caused them mental anguish.
“Nothing has changed regarding the voices,” he told anguished family members.
During another gathering later in the day with video streamed from the same site, Jadallah said that many of the victims were found in bed or in their bedroom and that if Hurricane Elsa was strong enough and passed through Surfside, it could cause the upright section of the building to collapse. He also used the meeting to inform families of the two demolition plans under consideration.
Later in the day Levine Cava went into more detail on the plan. She said the order she signed at 5:35 p.m. EDT excludes Surfside from having to apply for a demolition permit. It also speeds up the time frame in which a demolition team can be hired. The order also says that allowing the building to stand poses a risk because it could fall at any time and expose residents to “hazardous organic and inorganic materials and which may also generate harmful airborne particulates and odors.”
By late Friday, Burkett, the Surfside mayor, seemed resigned that the structure wasn’t coming down for another few weeks. He also said he was disheartened that residents likely won’t be able to retrieve any of their belongings before the structure is taken down.
“I’m very sad about that too, because as you can imagine that is a painful, painful situation,” he said.
Much of the building at 8777 Collins Ave. came crashing down at about 1:20 a.m. on June 24. Surveillance video shows the center section of the structure collapsing and the eastern side of the 12-story building, composed of 55 apartments, come crashing down in about 11 seconds. The section that remains upright, barely, faces Collins Avenue. Though the search and rescue effort resumed at about 5 p.m. Thursday, workers are now limited to about one-third of the site on the northeastern edge of the rubble after engineers warned of concerns that loose concrete on the upper floors continues to pose a substantial risk.
First responders have worked almost nonstop since finding a lone survivor on the morning of the partial collapse of the condo tower when they pulled a 15-year-old boy from the rubble.
But well into the evening Thursday, more than 200 rescue workers from around the state took a brief respite, standing at attention and saluting as a 7-year-old girl was recovered and carried away from the site by her father, uncle and the rescuers who helped dig her out.
The child is the daughter of a Miami firefighter who had been standing vigil at the site since the building collapsed. By late Friday the child and her father had not been identified. Miami Fire Chief Joseph Zahralban confirmed her recovery.
“We can confirm that a member of our city of Miami Fire Department family has lost his 7-year-old daughter in the collapse,” the chief said. “She was recovered last night by members of our Urban Search and Rescue Team, Florida Task Force 2.”
The girl is believed to be the daughter of Graciela Cattarossi, a photographer who lived in Unit 501 of the collapsed portion of the tower. Cattarossi lived there with her daughter Stella and the girl’s grandparents, according to friends.
Late Friday Miami-Dade police released the names of the other three victims recovered during the day. They are Bonnie Epstein, 56, Claudio Bonnefoy, 85, and Maria Obias-Bonnefoy, 69.
Everything from continuing the search to the possible demolition of the remaining structure to housing for out-of-town firefighters was being complicated as Hurricane Elsa churned steadily toward South Florida. By late afternoon Friday the storm was about 500 miles east-southeast of the Dominican Republic and expected to gain strength.
Margarita Castro, a member of Miami-Dade’s urban search and rescue team said even though there are contingency plans in place, the rescue effort could come to a halt depending on the storm’s path through the weekend.
With local hotels booked as the July 4 weekend approaches, fire-rescue reinforcements from out of town have been hard-pressed to find a place to sleep. Royal Caribbean alleviated some of the problem earlier this week by offering hundreds of beds to fire rescue personnel on its Explorer of the Seas cruise ship at PortMiami.
“First responders starting arriving there yesterday,” said port director Juan Kuryla, who said there is space for up to 600 people.
But the offer remained tenuous Friday as Elsa neared. Kuryla said the ship may have to leave Miami if the storm becomes a more serious threat.
The search was bolstered this week with the arrival of five federal urban search and rescue teams from Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The teams could offer relief if Florida team members need a break or are relocated during the arrival of a storm.
They could also help if rescue teams become short-handed from exhaustion or ailments. Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said earlier this week that there has been a slight COVID-19 outbreak in the ranks. On Friday he said six rescue members had tested positive. It wasn’t clear if others were quarantined.
As the search and rescue mission continues, engineers and others are combing through building plans, surveillance video, photos and other documents trying to piece together what led to the collapse. The latest clue surfaced in the form of a vague reference in a recent report about the building’s concrete.
Concrete testing at the Champlain Towers South condo last year “yielded some curious results,” engineering firm Morabito Consultants wrote in an October 2020 report obtained by the Miami Herald. But the report was silent on exactly what was unusual or alarming about it, an omission that surprised multiple experts who spoke with the Herald.
While the report describes some testing and repair efforts that were underway — such as the removal of damaged concrete from a pool equipment room and some “exploratory demolition” in five locations — it did not provide details on what was “curious” about the concrete testing.
The horrific collapse occurred just as the building was beginning its 40-year certification process, a comprehensive review that can require expensive repairs, which are billed to unit owners based on the square footage of their homes.
On Thursday, local leaders called for earlier inspections of older high-rise buildings. Surfside has requested that all owners of structures more than 30 years old and over three stories high begin assessing their buildings for recertification — a change from what has until now been a 40-year deadline.
Also Friday, the Champlain Towers Condo Association agreed to hand over financial decision-making to a court-appointed receiver. Attorney Michael Goldberg can now grant up to $10,000 of insurance money for condo owners who need help finding new homes in the aftermath of the collapse. Families will also be allowed up to $2,000 to pay for funeral expenses.
So far, insurance companies for Champlain Towers have already agreed to pay out $3 million, lawyers said during a Friday court hearing. The building had insurance policies for at least $48 million. The condo board is under intense legal and public scrutiny for the handling of repairs prior to the collapse.
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(Miami Herald staff writers Sarah Blaskey, Ben Conarck, Joey Flechas, Luis Joel Mendez Gonzalez, Alex Harris, Aaron Leibowitz, Michelle Marchante, Bianca Padró Ocasio, David Ovalle, Allie Pitchon, Marie-Rose Sheinerman and Colleen Wright contributed to this report.)
