SURFSIDE, Fla. — Rescue teams discovered two more victims of the Surfside condo collapse overnight, raising the death toll to 20 as first responders continued the search amid the threats of shifting rubble underfoot, falling debris overhead and a hurricane in the forecast.
One of the two victims found Thursday night was the 7-year-old daughter of a City of Miami firefighter, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a press briefing on Friday. She did not provide details on the second body recovered from the rubble of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South.
Though every day since the disaster has been difficult for families of the missing and rescuers working around the clock, Levine Cava said, Thursday’s discovery was especially tough.
“Last night was uniquely different,” she said. “It was truly different and more difficult for our first responders.”
Days of thunderstorms and intermittent downpours have destabilized the precarious pile where rescuers hope to find survivors. But cracks and shifting debris in the unstable wing of the tower still standing forced search and rescue teams to pause their work for 15 hours on Thursday while structural engineers determined it was safe to dig again.
The pause exasperated families of the missing, some of whom asked rescuers on Friday morning if they could confirm media accounts that rescuers heard voices in the rubble.
Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said that search-and-rescue teams have not heard a voice or human sounds in the rubble since the morning of the collapse on June 24, according to a video of the private meeting posted on social media Friday.
Jadallah said rescuers worked hard to reach the woman but were unable to do so, and that the team’s failure to save her life had caused them mental anguish.
“Nothing has changed regarding the voices,” he said. “The last voice we heard was approximately 10-11 a.m. that morning, the day of the incident.”
“The only person we heard that we could not get out was that woman. ... We did not hear any other voice. We did not hear additional sounds.”
With thunderstorms and more rain likely in the forecast Friday, rescue teams continued the search but they were limited to scouring about one third of the pile because loose concrete on the upper floors of the standing structure posed too big a risk to rescuers below, said structural engineer Scott Nacheman, a forensic architect and structural expert with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Debris in the pile and debris in the building [has been] displaced,” Nacheman said. The building itself has not moved, he said.
Levine Cava said Thursday that search and rescue remains a priority, but that the county is “planning for the likely demolition of the building.”
Nacheman said if the structure is demolished, it won’t be for several weeks.
Searching the east side of the pile on Friday, rescue teams have not found a survivor since the hours after the partial collapse of the condo tower at 1:30 a.m. on June 24.
Officials have confirmed 20 deaths as of Friday morning. The number of people reported missing was reduced to 128 after Miami-Dade homicide detectives culled the list of names, which had been gathered from initial information provided by friends and family of those who lived or worked in the tower.
The 7-year-old victim recovered from the rubble late Thursday, first reported by WPLG-Channel 10, is believed to be the daughter of Graciela Cattarossi, a photographer who lived in unit 501 of the collapsed portion of the tower, along with her daughter, Stella, and the girl’s grandparents, according to friends.
The child’s recovered body was carried away from the site late Thursday by her father, uncle and the rescuers who helped dig her out. The city and other rescue workers have not identified the firefighter or the victim, but Miami Fire Chief Joseph Zahralban released a statement confirming that the child of a first responder had been recovered.
“Our hearts and prayers are with the families affected by this horrific tragedy. We can confirm that a member of our city of Miami Fire Department family has lost his 7-year-old daughter in the collapse. She was recovered last night by members of our Urban Search and Rescue Team, Florida Task Force 2.”
While rescue teams search, emergency managers are keeping an eye on a storm, Hurricane Elsa, percolating east of the Lesser Antilles. Officials warned residents to prepare and said they have a contingency plan in place.
Jadallah, the county’s assistant fire chief, told families on Friday that search-and-rescue teams would continue working up until the last possible moment as the storm approaches South Florida.
“Even if the hurricane is coming, we’re going to continue working until the safety of the personnel is in question,” he said.
Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said his agency is prepared to handle up to three catastrophes at a time.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky, said search-and-rescue teams were eager to resume their work despite the risks. He said it was “difficult sitting around” during the pause in work on Thursday.
Cominsky also said a few cases of COVID have turned up.
“So we’re monitoring that, unfortunately,” he said.
HOUSING FOR REINFORCEMENTS
The massive rescue effort — including specialized emergency workers from around the country and as far away as Mexico and Israel — had been continuing around the clock before the pause on Thursday.
As more reinforcements arrive, though, they are hard pressed to find a place to stay. Hotels are booked for the upcoming Fourth of July weekend.
This week, Royal Caribbean made hundreds of beds available on its Explorer of the Seas cruise ship at PortMiami.
“First responders starting arriving there yesterday,” Juan Kuryla, the port director, said Friday. “It was brought in to provide lodging.”
He said there is space available for about 600 people. The lodging solution could be complicated with the threat of Hurricane Elsa, a growing worry for authorities managing the response. Kuryla said the ship may have to leave Miami if the storm becomes a more serious threat.
PRESIDENTIAL VISIT
President Joe Biden’s visit on Thursday, a week after the building collapsed, included visits with first responders and grieving families as well as a brief stop at one of the memorial walls. He and first lady Jill Biden laid a bouquet of white flowers next to several saint candles. They held hands while they looked at the photos of some of the faces of victims and missing persons.
Biden said the families “are realistic” about the chances that their loved ones are still alive a week after the collapse.
Late Thursday, Miami-Dade police identified the 17th victim as Magaly Elena Delgado, 80.
“I spoke with one woman who just lost her husband and her little baby boy and she didn’t know what to do,” Biden said, “and to watch them, they’re praying and pleading, ‘God, let there be a miracle.’
“Jill and I wanted them to know that we’re with them, the country’s with them.”
The president’s voice wavered with emotion as he recalled his own experience with grief, the accident that killed his first wife and daughter and left the fate of his sons unsure.
“It’s bad enough to lose somebody. But the hard part, the really hard part is to not know if somebody survived,” he said.
Biden also met with around 50 uniformed first responders in a hotel ballroom. “I just wanted to come down and say thanks,” he told them, as the first lady stood behind him.
A PAUSE IN THE SEARCH
Search-and-rescue teams stopped working early Thursday morning after authorities voiced new, urgent concerns that the remaining structure of the 12-story Champlain Towers South could topple.
The search resumed at 4:45 p.m. Thursday, after structural engineers determined it was safe to resume digging, Miami-Dade’s mayor said during an early evening briefing.
“We will continue to search feverishly, as we have done all along, in the parts of the collapse that we safely have access to,” Levine Cava said.
Search-and-rescue team member Maggie Castro said structural engineers that lead the Urban Search and Rescue team use extremely sensitive tools that monitor any movement in the building, down to millimeters.
Cominsky, the county’s fire chief, said engineers raised several concerns with structural issues of the building. Mainly, they documented 6 to 12 inches of movement in a large concrete column hanging over the subterranean parking area. There has also been “slight movement” in a concrete slab on the south side of the building that “could cause additional failure of the building.”
He said there has also been movement in the debris pile.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking at Thursday’s briefing, said “obviously last night there were issues with the remaining structure” of the Champlain Towers South Condo, but added that state engineers were helping Miami-Dade Fire Rescue get “different options on how to handle this.”
“Obviously we believe that continuing searching is something that’s very important,” DeSantis said.
CONSOLING FAMILIES
The pause was difficult for family members with fading hopes of finding their loved ones alive.
U.S. Chaplain Corps Director General Mendy Coen, one of the 30 chaplains meeting with families this week, said relatives were “yelling and screaming and crying” as they learned that the search-and-rescue effort was temporarily paused because of fears over a further collapse.
“This is tough,” Coen said, perched in the backseat of a golf cart as a fellow chaplain veered the vehicle through traffic on Harding Avenue, en route to the Surfside community center. “Every day, every hour, there’s a new development.”
Late Wednesday, Miami-Dade police identified two sisters, 10-year-old Lucia Guara and 4-year-old Emma Guara, as victims in the condo collapse. Their parents also died.
No bodies were recovered on Thursday.
SEARCH FOR ANSWERS
As the search and rescue mission continues, engineers and others are combing through building plans, surveillance video, photos and other documents that will help them piece together the probable cause of the partial 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 building.
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 recertification deadline.
The town called it an “acceleration” of the program.
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(Miami Herald staff writers Sarah Blaskey, Ben Conarck, Joey Flechas, Luis Joel Mendez Gonzalez, Alex Harris, Aaron Leibowitz, Bianca Padró Ocasio, David Ovalle, Allie Pitchon, Marie-Rose Sheinerman, Martin Vassolo and Colleen Wright contributed to this report.)
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