‘What are you doing? You OK?’ Surfside mayor encounters girl praying for missing parent
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Monday that he met a little girl over the weekend at the family reunification center. One of her parents is among the missing in Champlain Towers South building collapse.
The girl, who Burkett said is probably 11 or 12 years old, told him she split her time before the collapse living with one parent in the Champlain Towers and staying with the other who lives in a nearby building in Surfside.
“And, she told me she goes back and forth. When I came across her, she was sitting in a chair by herself with nobody around her, looking at her phone,” Burkett said. “And I knelt down and I asked her, ‘So what are you doing? You OK?’”
The girl told him she was praying.
“It was a Jewish prayer. But, she was reading it to herself sitting at the site by where one of her parents presumably is. And, that really brought it home to me,” Burkett said. “And, she was just, she wasn’t crying. She was just lost. She didn’t know what to do. What to say. Who to talk to.”
Burkett said he went back to the reunification center Monday morning, but he did not see the child. He said he wants to find her.
“And, I’m going to tell her that we’re all here for her, and we’re going to do the best we can to bring out that parent,” Burkett said. “That is just a tiny, tiny example of the impact that this collapse has had on our community.”
This story was originally published June 28, 2021 at 5:13 PM.
