‘Love is enduring.’ Surfside remembers 98 victims of condo collapse 5 years later

Five years ago, Raquel Oliveira had just celebrated her son Lorenzo’s fifth birthday. She hosted dozens of children at her home at the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, unaware that the condominium was beginning to fail.

Wednesday marks five years since the building’s collapse, which killed 98 people, including Oliveira’s son and her husband, Alfredo Leone. The Town of Surfside held a remembrance event where victims’ families, first responders, elected officials and community members gathered to pray, grieve and mark the solemn milestone. The names of each victim was read out loud as people in the audience stood in silence, wiping their tears and embracing each other.

“From now on, I’ll have more time without Lorenzo than with him,” Oliveira said while speaking on stage at the event. Behind her stood an image of a rendering of a permanent memorial honoring the 98 collapse victims that has yet to materialize, a sore subject that was mentioned several times during the event, along with condolences, family memories and words of encouragement.

“Five years later, I can tell you that time does not heal. The pain does not get better,” she said. “What actually happens is that we are forced to grow around it.”

On Monday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released its report on what caused the catastrophe, pointing to flaws in the design, construction and maintenance of the building. Following the collapse, state legislators passed new laws to bolster condo safety, another theme touched on by speakers at the event.

“Remembrance is not just looking back, it’s about what we do next. The first duty today is to honor the 98 souls. The second duty is to stand with survivors and families. The third to make sure Florida learns about what happened here,” said Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins, who was a state senator at the time of the collapse. “Condo safety is not just a building issue. It’s a people issue. It’s a family issue. It is a public trust issue. When someone goes to sleep at night, they should never have to wonder whether that building is going to collapse around them or that it’s safe.”

Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger was not present, but addressed the audience and thanked first responders in a pre-recorded video message. “Today we continue this sacred tradition to ensure that the memories of those we lost and the strength of the survivors are never forgotten,” he said.

Families speak out on memorial

Victims’ family members who have been advocating for the permanent memorial for years did not shy away from the issue while speaking at the event. In February, the Herald reported that construction was expected to begin before April, but ground has not been broken on the project.

Though designs for the memorial — estimated to cost about $5.5 million overall — were completed last year, Surfside elected officials split the construction of the memorial into phases in order to keep each phase under $3.6 million, said acting Town Manager Mario Diaz. If the cost was over $3.6 million, the town would be required to hold a town-side voter referendum to approve it, he said.

The memorial’s wall featuring the 98 names will be completed first, and the canopy feature will be completed and funded at a later date, Diaz said.

Danzinger, who was elected in April, told the Herald in an email that the design for the memorial is “now nearly complete” and construction will begin in the summer after county approval.

As she spoke about processing grief and the loss of her son and husband, Oliveira said she and other family members involved in the memorial were “blindsided” by the changes regarding the memorial. Fighting to get the memorial done over the last five years has been exhausting and painful, she said.

“To those who wish to alter our project, to those who want to build a memorial without our voices, look at us. Look at our pain,” Oliveira said. “You cannot rewrite our history, and you cannot budget away our grief. We have survived the collapse of our world, and we will not let you collapse our tribute to them.”

Martin Langesfeld, whose sister Nicky and brother-in-law Luis Sadovnic died in the collapse, shared similar frustrations as he spoke on stage. He glanced at the elected officials sitting next to the stage before saying, “We are fed up with the politics.”

“Too often support is shown at anniversaries, but it disappears when decisions have to be made,” he said.

He said families have been “disrespected countless times by the Town of Surfside” with broken promises and criticized the mayor for flying to Dubai to meet with the developer who purchased the condo site.

Langesfeld even called on Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to open a criminal investigation into the collapse.

“This is bigger than one building. If corrosion and weak oversight contributed to this collapse, how many families across the state and the coast are living in buildings with similar warning signs and do not know it?”

Life five years later

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she still remembers the smoke, the dust, the sirens and the faces of families waiting for news. “It’s like five years have not gone by,” she told reporters before the remembrance event.

“You’ve shown the world what it means to love in loss, to speak out with purpose, and to carry forward the legacies of those who are no longer here,” Levine Cava told families.

Families and first responders reflected on what it’s like to live after such a profound tragedy. Miami-Dade Fire Chief Ray Jadallah spoke about how the tragedy changed him personally. He remembers people comforting others while needing comfort themselves, the first responders who refused to give up and strangers who became family members.

“Memory is one of the purest forms of love. To remember someone is to insist that their life mattered. That their laughter mattered. That their dreams mattered and that their story did not end beneath concrete and steel,” he said.

Rachel Spiegel, who lost her mother Judy Spiegel in the collapse, reflected on the Jewish saying, “May their memory be a blessing.” Now, she said, she understands those words are a guide for how to continue living after loss.

“They live in the stories we tell. They live in the traditions we continue. They live in the values they taught us. They live in every heart they touched. Today, five years later, we are still speaking their names. We are still telling their stories. We are still carrying them forward, and because of that they are still here, not in the way we wish but in the way that matters most. Through love.”

Spiegel recalled the last time she saw her mother. It was June 20, Father’s Day and her brother’s birthday. Before the pool party, she was at Target when she saw a beautiful pink dress that would be perfect for her oldest daughter. But she didn’t buy it because she didn’t want to be late.

Her parents later encouraged her to buy the dress, but it was sold out in the right size online. Her mother didn’t give up. She kept checking the Target website and ordered the dress as soon as it came in stock. She never got to see her granddaughter wear it.

For a while, Spiegel said, she couldn’t look at the dress without crying. But now the dress has become a symbol for how life continues despite grief. Over the last five years, her daughters Scarlett and Sloane outgrew the little pink dress.

As their mother spoke, the girls pulled the dress from a bag and held it up together.

“Life is fragile, but love is enduring,” Spiegel said.