MIAMI — The first responders to the early morning collapse of part of a Surfside condominium building on June 24 arrived at a scene that one county firefighter described as reminiscent of the 9/11 World Trade Center catastrophe.
Rescue managers soon thought the situation could get even worse, fearing the remaining portion of Champlain Towers South would crumble too, with residents still waiting for help on their balconies.
“We have one lady up on the balcony here,” an unidentified county firefighter said in a message to the command center about an hour and 15 minutes after the collapse was first reported at 1:23 a.m. “We’re about to do a quick grab.”
That brought instructions to clear out as soon as possible. “After that,” a supervisor responded, “you have to move ASAP. We’re about to set up a collapse zone.”
By then, rescue teams weren’t sure how long the remaining tower could stay intact after the southern portion of the 12-story complex collapsed without warning. That made the site a potential death trap for residents of the remaining units, and a hazard for rescue workers arriving from across South Florida to aid in the operation.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue on Friday released three hours of dispatch audio from the Surfside response, offering another look at how the response unfolded after a collapse that would claim 98 lives.
The most dramatic passage of the chronology involves the only known time rescue teams made contact with a victim still alive under the debris — a brief moment of hope that had already been confirmed publicly by authorities but without details.
At 6:42 a.m., the logs show a canine crew reported hearing a possible victim. Two minutes later, there’s a record of a potential victim in the garage and a note that engineers are being called for a possible rescue operation.
Fire Department representatives weren’t available Friday night to clarify the log entries, and the audio dispatch recording ended before this portion of the operation occurred.
In past public statements, authorities said rescuers made contact with a female victim in the collapse site in the early hours of the effort, but that she eventually stopped communicating. The person was not identified publicly.
In the log dispatches, the victim was identified as being in a second-floor unit with two others at the time of the collapse, but now alone. “3 PEOPLE WERE IN THE RM WITH THE PAT THEY ARE SPEAKING TO,” a dispatch entry read at 7:07 a.m., using shorthand for patient. “WILL ADV IF ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ARE NEEDED.”
The log dispatch identifies the person as coming from Unit 204, which was the vacation rental for a family of three from Colombia who died in the collapse. Those victims were 14-year-old Valeria Barth Gómez and parents Luis Fernando Barth Toba and Catalina Gómez.
Separate recordings of on-the-ground radio communication on June 24 fill in the details from the log entries. “We’re hearing some screaming,” one rescue worker told a dispatcher. “We’re in the parking garage,” another worker said a few minutes later. “Apparently this victim was in Apartment 204... That’s what she’s advising.”
”She’s stuck in-between two beds right now,” the first rescue worker said. “But her parents were also in that apartment. I don’t hear them, though.”
The radio traffic, posted on YouTube the day of the collapse, has rescuers relaying the garage was proving too difficult to enter. Instead, they planned to try and reach the victim from the second floor, where she was when the building fell. “We’re going to exit the parking garage, and reenter through the second floor,” the unnamed rescuer said. “See if we can access her through there.”
An order went out for another crew to bring an ax and sledge hammer to the second floor. That recording also ended as the search for the Unit 204 resident was underway.
The log does not seem to reference the rescue effort until about five hours later.
At 11:05 a.m., a log entry read: “LOST VOICE CONTACT WITH VICTIM.”
Some of audio, which can be captured by scanners, was reported in the first days after the collapse, including by WPLG Local 10. The Miami Herald obtained the three-hour recording and accompanying dispatch logs through a records request.
The recordings show a mix of by-the-book relaying of information to rescue units from even-toned dispatchers and urgency in marshaling the resources needed to respond to an historic disaster. “What is the status of the 10 units I requested,” one rescue administrator asks after nearly an hour had passed into the operation.” Minutes later: “Give me three units...I need them on the corner of 87th and Collins right now.”
Dispatch logs show calls from residents in the remaining tower — and family members relaying messages from the trapped — asking to be rescued. “CALLING FRM CHAMPLAIN TOWERS APT 1006,” reads one of the first entries, many of which include abbreviated words, recorded at 1:30 a.m. “SHE’S ON HER BALCONY AND CAN’T GET OUT.”
A minute later, a man called relaying a plea for help from his mother. “SHE IS TRAPPED INSIDE...AND UNABLE TO GET OUT.”
Everyone in the remaining structure made it out alive, but the abandoned tower remained a looming threat for search efforts that ended up finding no survivors after the first hours after the collapse. A demolition crew felled the tower on July 4 after authorities concluded it could topple in high winds as Hurricane Elsa threatened.
Dozens of fire and rescue units from across Miami-Dade and Broward were dispatched to the scene. Logs show the FBI and its bomb squad arrived that morning, along with search dogs and drones. Shortly after 5 a.m., dispatchers reported needing police officers on Collins to respond to a “family attempting to run over to pile.”
Despite concerns about the building’s stability, rescue crews went inside for door-to-door searches to find residents in the still standing units.
Dispatchers said they had a report of someone remaining in Unit 407, but rescuers said the apartment was empty. (The person was later found at a makeshift reunification spot at the Surfside community center.) At 5:17 a.m., nearly four hours after the collapse, crews were still finding people inside the remaining tower. “1 Stable ambulatory victim found in unit 406,” one log read.
The June 24 recordings captured the shock as the first firefighters and police arrived on the scene at 88th Street and Collins Avenue to see rubble, residents begging for help from the remaining tower and entry points closed off by debris.
“I see many people on the balconies,” one responder said in the first three minutes of the recording. “The building is gone. There are no elevators. It almost resembles the Trade Center.”
