Dozens crowded into the barricaded street before the memorial wall a block away from the collapsed condo in Surfside for a multi-faith vigil Thursday evening — taking the moment to pray, light candles, mourn lost loved ones, and “show up” for the tight-knit small town community.
“This is very healing to the community,” said Gabrielle Arredondo, a Surfside resident whose neighbors were killed in the collapse. “Being here ... I know that that they are not here, but I can feel them here,” she said of those who lost their lives. “It’s a lot of love here.”
With new red roses attached to each of the markers lining the chain-link fence, mourners cried, covered their faces, closed their eyes in prayer and attached more photos to the wall.
A long line of people, many of them holding candles, formed along Harding Ave. Some stood a distance from the wall to give space to family members. Others approached Surfside Chief of Police Julio Yero, who stood to the side, thanking him for his efforts in the search-and-rescue.
“It’s impossible to comprehend this tragedy,” said Irina Kamyshnikova in Russian, who immigrated and settled in Surfside nine years ago. She and her husband had come to light candles at the wall.
By 8 p.m. on Thursday, ahead of the planned vigil, community members and loved ones of victims had begun to gather near the memorial wall.
Joe Zevuloni, the founder of Strong for Surfside — a volunteer network that sprouted at the Surfside community center on the day of the collapse and grew from 30 volunteers to over a thousand, including 15 executive chefs to provide meals for first responders — came to hang up a sign on the wall ahead of the vigil.
“We’ve been there from day one,” he said of why he wanted to attend the vigil. “We want to support the community.”
Mike Blandino Scull, 43, was there to pay tribute to Arnold Notkin, who had once been his elementary school gym teacher in South Beach.
“He was a phenomenal teacher,” Scull said, before signing Notkin’s marker. To attend the vigil, he said for him is a way to show “love and respect for the innocent people who passed,” and to put action in the face of a tragedy for which “there are no words.”
Marco Winer, a Surfside resident for over three decades, stood before the wall, mentally preparing for the vigil. He remembered getting the 4 a.m. call on the day of the collapse. “We didn’t know anything, we just heard Champlain,” he said.
Winer’s 99-year-old aunt lived in the Champlain North Towers — but she was able to evacuate.
The national press has mostly left town and regular traffic resumed along Harding Ave., as the death toll stands at 97 and the recovery seems to be nearing an end. Some survivors and friends of victims are left to wonder what will become of their town now.
Steve Eisenberg, who had several close friends among those killed in the collapse, told the Miami Herald that prayer and faith-based community becomes all the more important in remembering victims as major media outlets move on.
“For the rest of the world, it’s over with, next, they don’t want to hear it anymore,” he said, remembering Rabbi Sholom Lipskar’s recent message to his community at the Shul of Bal Harbour. “But we don’t forget. We have a year-long mourning period. We say Kaddish for the dead.” Kaddish is the Jewish mourner’s prayer.
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