SURFSIDE, Fla. — Four more bodies have been found in the rubble of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South, fire officials told families Wednesday, as rescue teams entered the seventh day of scouring the site for survivors.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a Wednesday morning briefing that the death toll has risen to 16 people, though only 12 families have been notified of their loved one’s death. Levine Cava said 139 people who lived or worked in the portion of the tower that collapsed have been accounted for, but another 147 have been reported missing.
Teams have been working through the rubble at a faster pace after engineers and first responders built a ramp overnight Tuesday to bring cranes, backhoes and other heavy equipment closer to the sunken pool deck, which experts and survivors have said collapsed first, potentially triggering a portion of the tower to fall.
While rescue teams burn through gloves, boots and other gear in the ongoing search for survivors, mental health counselors are helping families cope with the anguish and despair of the tragedy.
Charles Cyrille, deputy incident commander for Miami-Dade, said the “all hands on deck” response includes 26 organizations that are present at the family assistance center providing grief counseling, and help with housing and other needs.
Levine Cava pledged that officials would also get to the bottom of what caused the collapse. saying that she has spoken with Miami-Dade’s state attorney about asking a grand jury to investigate the catastrophe. Miami-Dade has also launched a mass inspection of buildings that are in the process of a 40 years or older and taller than five stories.
“As we continue our search and rescue efforts 24/7 without stop,” she said, “we’re also taking immediate action to provide answers and accountability,” she said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking at the news briefing in Surfside on Wednesday, said the state is committing more resources to helping families cope with the tragedy in the long term. And he vowed that the search and rescue would continue until every person is accounted for.
“Rest assured,” he said, “that those folks are going to be working on that pile and it’s not going to stop and they’re going to get answers one way or another.”
Rescue teams, who have been working in 12-hour shifts, got a big help with the effort late Tuesday when workers were able to bring heavy equipment closer to the pile, said Florida’s Chief Financial Officer and State Fire Marshall Jimmy Patronis.
“Now you’re able to leverage massive equipment to remove massive pieces of concrete that could lead to those incredible good news events,” he said.
VICTIMS IDENTIFIED
One family confirmed Wednesday that the 12th person found dead at the site was Hilda Noriega, 92, the mother of North Bay Village Police Chief Carlos Noriega and a resident of Champlain Towers South unit 602.
“The Noriegas have lost the ‘heart and soul’ and ‘matriarch’ of their family, but will get through this time by embracing the unconditional love Hilda was known for,” said the family’s statement posted to the North Bay Village Twitter account.
Officials have not identified the four additional bodies recovered from the site because they are notifying family members first. A long line of Miami-Dade County police cars and medical examiner vans are at the site on Collins Avenue.
Reminders are everywhere of the gaping void that the catastrophe has left in so many lives.
Just before 8 a.m., one man approached a makeshift memorial affixed to a chain link fence one block away from the site and in the shadow of the Champlain Towers. He placed white roses near a baby doll and a toy Nerf gun — mementos arranged along with photographs of the missing and an array of carnations. The makeshift shrine is waterlogged after days and nights of persistent rain.
As he crouched down, alone on the sidewalk, his face cracked as he lifted his shirt over his face.
“It’s just so sad,” he said quietly, as he walked away.
Rescue teams have contended with nearly a week of rain, heat, fires deep inside the rubble and the instability of the pile itself. Falling and shifting debris pose deadly risks for rescue workers, and those conditions can slow the search.
Teams have removed 3 million pounds of concrete from the site, Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said Tuesday night.
The commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit told CNN early Wednesday that rescue teams discovered new tunnels in the rubble Tuesday night, leading them to find more bodies.
As teams continue the painstaking search and rescue — and families and friends of the missing await information about the fate of their loved ones — President Joe Biden said he will visit Surfside on Thursday and Miami-Dade officials pledged to find answers for the catastrophic collapse.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she would ask a grand jury to examine the condo collapse and safety issues raised by the tragedy. The structural engineer hired by the town of Surfside to investigate the building collapse began his work on-site Tuesday, focusing on the portion of Champlain Towers South that is still standing and whether it is safe for search-and-rescue teams.
Levine Cava said police detectives are reviewing the list of missing persons — provided by friends and family members who reported the information — in order to remove duplicate names and get a more accurate account. She said the process is “slow and methodical,” and she urged anyone with information about a missing resident to call the county’s hotline at 305-614-1819.
Helping rescue teams search for survivors are at least two small unmanned devices sent from a Massachusetts-based company over the weekend to the Surfside collapse scene. They are equipped with thermal sensors and 360-degree-view cameras that can help teams search for people and that have previously helped rescuers in similar situations, including the World Trade Center collapse on Sept. 11.
THE SEARCHERS
Four weeks into hurricane season, emergency officials said they must be prepared for potential storms anywhere in the state.
With every Florida Urban Search and Rescue Task Force currently deployed to Surfside, officials said they have requested reinforcements in Surfside in case crews are needed to respond to a storm elsewhere in Florida.
Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said he and Cominsky made the decision together to request additional resources from the federal government.
Cominksy said officials had already requested to have three federal teams on standby in case they’re needed. One will now be deployed to Surfside, he added.
“Due to the recent five-day forecast with two storms, we decided that it would be best to go ahead and activate them,” he said.
STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS
While rescue teams continue their work, engineers and others have started what is expected to be a lengthy investigation. They are also working to inspect the condition of buildings adjacent to Champlain Towers South and ensure their structural integrity.
Allyn Kilsheimer, founder and chief executive of KCE Structural Engineers based in Washington, D.C., has consulted on major disasters like the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon and the Florida International University bridge collapse. He said the firm would perform an “in-depth evaluation” of the cause of the collapse.
Potential clues have begun to emerge about what caused the building at 8777 Collins Ave. to fail.
An engineer’s 2018 report flagged “major structural damage” in the pool deck, entrance ramp and garage areas below the Champlain Towers South, yet the chief building official for the town of Surfside told residents the condo building was “in very good shape,” according to minutes from a November 2018 board meeting obtained by the Miami Herald.
Ross Prieto, the chief building official who left the post in Surfside last year, announced Tuesday that he has taken a leave of absence as Doral’s temporary building official.
An email posted on the town’s website showed that condo board member Mara Chouela sent Prieto two reports: the “structural field survey report” by engineer Frank Morabito of Morabito Consultants detailing the building’s structural deficiencies, and a mechanical and electrical engineering report by Thomas E. Henz, P.E.
USA Today reported on Monday that a letter sent in April from the president of the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association said that damage to the doomed building’s basement garage had “gotten significantly worse” since an inspection about two and a half years earlier and that deterioration of the building’s concrete was “accelerating.”
More recently, a commercial pool contractor who visited the condo building last Tuesday, just 36 hours before half of the structure unexpectedly collapsed, said he discovered water and related damage throughout the basement-level garage.
“There was standing water all over the parking garage,” the contractor, who asked not to be named, told the Miami Herald. He noted cracking concrete and severely corroded rebar in the pool equipment room.
He also took photos, which he shared with the Miami Herald.
The contractor visited the condo building last week to put together a bid for a cosmetic restoration of the pool as well as to price out new pool equipment — a small piece of the multimillion-dollar restoration project that just was getting underway at the 40-year-old building.
Based on public records, video footage of the building’s collapse and other images of the property, several engineering experts told the Herald that they suspect the pool deck and parking garage area caved in first, which then caused the middle and oceanfront sections of the tower to crumble under their own weight.
CITIES EXPLORE INSPECTION CHANGES
With hundreds of residential high-rises in Miami-Dade, local governments across the county have begun to consider changes in regulations for inspecting and certifying the structural integrity of buildings.
Levine Cava said her administration plans to provide recommendations for the county after she calls a series of meetings with experts on condominium law, geology, building safety, and other areas of expertise tied to the questions raised by the Surfside collapse.
The meetings are being called “so my staff and I can develop a set of recommendations and changes that need to be made at all steps of the building process to assure a tragedy like this will never happen again,” she said.
Miami’s building department also has called for more oversight, with city officials outlining a new plan to push owners of older buildings to get their structures inspected.
The city wants buildings taller than six stories that are 40 years or older to hire structural engineers to check for “visible signs of distress” on the structures — even if the buildings have already passed the recertification process.
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(Miami Herald staff writers Samantha J. Gross, Doug Hanks, Aaron Leibowitz, Bianca Padró Ocasio, Charles Rabin and Martin Vassolo contributed to this report.)
