Crews race to find more than 100 people
Four more victims have been found, raising the death toll from the disaster in Surfside to 16, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Wednesday.
About 139 people are accounted for, but that figure includes the victims killed, the mayor said. Moving forward, she said any new victims found will not be included in that count.
As hundreds of rescuers — some from overseas — keep digging through the precarious mountain of rubble, some are trying to reconcile hope with realism.
“We must be realistic,” said Col. Golan Vach, commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit.
“Tomorrow will be one week. So until one week, I still hope.”
Tons of crushed concrete and bad weather
“Most of the collapse is very, very tight. The collapse was major,” Vach said.
Rescue crews will soon face another challenge: inclement weather.
Rain and thunderstorms are expected Wednesday and Thursday, with the potential for strong winds and lightning.
But canine crews will not be hampered after stormy weather, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Wednesday.
He said two teams of dogs — one searching for survivors, the other looking for victims — are able to follow scents even after wind and rain.
Despite all the challenges of finding survivors, “I can tell you that none of us have lost hope,” Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Capt. Eddy Alarcon said
He said searchers will keep “hammering away and cutting away in hopes that we can find somebody,” he said. “We’re always praying for somebody to be alive, but at the very least it gives some closure to the families waiting to hear from their loved ones.”
A survivor says the garage collapsed
One survivor who fled with her family said the collapse may have started in the area of the pool deck and parking garage.
Sara Nir said she heard what sounded like construction noises around 1:10 a.m. Thursday
She went to talk to the security guard about the noise but was interrupted by a terrifying sound.
“There was a big boom, and I was running to see where the sound came from,” Nir told CNN’s John Berman.
“And I saw all the garage collapse. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I (was) in a movie.”
She was able to escape with her son and daughter. Two loud booming noises later, all they could see were white clouds of dust.
Michael Stratton told the Miami Herald he was on the phone with his wife, Cassondra, when she told him their condo was shaking just before the collapse.
She was looking outside and told him she saw “a sinkhole where the pool out her window used to be,” Stratton told the Miami Herald.
The waterproofing below the pool deck and entrance drive was failing and causing “major structural damage,” according to the report.
The report didn’t say the structure was at risk of collapse.
The community rallies together
A memorial for those missing or lost after ther condo collapse was established near the scene.
More than $1.9 million has been raised to help those affected by the disaster, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said.
The building’s tennis center has been transformed. Now, it functions as a respite for the first responders, and the walls are adorned with flowers and photos memorializing those killed or unaccounted for.
A memorial features photos of some of those killed or unaccounted for.
“In September I’m going to go back with the kids, but Stella and Grace are not going to be there. It makes my heart break,” Hernandez told the station.
Escapes and rescues
Iliana Monteagudo, 64, woke up in the middle of the night Thursday to a strange sound. Then, she saw a crack snaking down her wall.
“I start going down, fast, and I hear crack, crack, crack,” she said. “I start to scream, ‘Come on God, I want to see my son, I want to see my grandson. Don’t let me die in this condition.'”
Once outside she called her son to say she was OK, but that the building behind her had collapsed.
“Three seconds separate me, the life to the death. Three seconds,” she told the station.
Esther Gorfinkel, 88, was carried out of the building by neighbors as she headed slowly down the staircase.
“I saw the sky. I knew I will be safe,” Gorfinkel said.
Engineers look for ‘trigger events’
Because of the disaster, a building audit is underway across the county, and that audit has already uncovered serious issues, Mayor Levine Cava said.
“Our building officer notified one of those properties, a building in northeast Dade, that four balconies must be immediately closed to residents due to safety conditions,” the mayor said Tuesday.
“We’re taking swift action to immediately identify and address any outstanding issues with the buildings that have not yet completed their 40-year certification process — that’s our priority right now,” she said.
Levine Cava said she expects all issues the audit turns up will be addressed in a matter of weeks.
“In hindsight, they should have made more noise. They had this report, they had a report, it said very clearly, ‘Your building is in bad shape,'” she said.
Donna DiMaggio Berger, an attorney for the condominium board, said she didn’t think the building was in a state of disrepair prior to its collapse.
“We have months and years to dig into what happened, and we’re going to. The board is already in the process of hiring an engineer to also try to figure out what happened, and they will be evaluating who’s responsible.”
Allyn Kilsheimer, a structural engineer who has investigated the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing, has been hired by the city to investigate the collapse.
Engineers are looking to see what the “trigger event” was for the collapse, Kilsheimer said.
Kilsheimer said the investigation will take a long time as it looks into all possible scenarios.
CNN’s Kay Jones, Camille Furst, Jason Hanna, Gregory Lemos and Hollie Silverman contributed to this report.
