SURFSIDE, Fla. — Rescue teams carried on the search for life early Friday amid the shifting rubble and falling debris of the Surfside condo collapse, facing yet another challenge that has grown more dire over time — days of thunderstorms and rain that have destabilized the precarious pile, washing away clues that could lead them to people beneath the rubble and severely limiting the areas where it's safe for them to search.
The search had paused for 15 hours on Thursday until structural engineers determined it was safe to dig again. With thunderstorms and rain likely in the forecast Friday, rescue teams worked in the shadow of the waterlogged wing of Champlain Towers South that's still standing after a partial collapse of the building.
Search and rescue teams 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 engineer 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.
Searching the east side of the pile on Friday, rescue teams have not reported finding any additional survivors or victims since Wednesday. Since the partial collapse of the condo tower on June 24, officials have confirmed 18 deaths. Another 145 people remain missing.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella 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.
Levine Cava said emergency managers are also keeping an eye on a storm, Elsa, percolating east of the Lesser Antilles and warned residents to prepare. Emergency managers said they have a contingency plan in place.
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. He said it was "difficult sitting around."
Cominsky also said a few cases of COVID have turned up.
"So we're monitoring that, unfortunately," he said.
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.
The massive rescue effort — featuring specialized emergency workers from around the country and as far away as Mexico and Israel — had been continuing around the clock, through stifling heat and frequent rainstorms. But work stopped early Thursday morning after authorities voiced new, urgent concerns that the remaining structure of the 12-story Champlain Towers South could topple.
The search for life among the rubble of the fallen Surfside condo resumed at 4:45 p.m. Thursday, after structural engineers determined it was safe to resume digging, Levine Cava 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," she said.
Search-and-rescue team member Maggie Castro said structural engineers that lead the Urban Search and Rescue team members 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.
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."
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(Miami Herald staff writers Marie-Rose Sheinerman, Colleen Wright, Allie Pitchon, Ben Conarck and Charles Rabin contributed to this report.)
