Here’s why rescue crews want to find ‘voids’ in the collapsed condo tower in Surfside
Families were distraught to hear that the search for their missing loved ones was temporarily paused Thursday over concerns that the remaining portion of the partially collapsed condo tower in Surfside would fall.
Now, officials are considering alternatives. This includes likely demolishing the portion of the building that remains standing to allow rescue crews to continue recovering bodies and search for possible survivors.
As of Thursday, 18 people are confirmed dead and 145 still missing. And while the chances of survival grow dimmer with each day, there’s still hope that someone may be found alive.
“We hope to find the survivors, though the chances are low,” Elad Edri, the deputy commander of the Israeli search-and-rescue team, said Thursday. “And we tell it to the families: that we still hope, based on the lessons of the past, that it can be done.”
If there are survivors, they’ll likely be found in a void, said Pete Gomez, retired assistant Miami fire chief who ran the city’s emergency operations center for six years and is now the senior director of Florida International University’s Academy for International Disaster Preparedness.
When a building collapses, some of the falling debris could land or lean against a refrigerator, a piece of furniture or another column, creating an open space, sometimes in a “V” shape. Gomez said these spaces are called “voids.” And if there’s enough oxygen going into the space, with no toxic gases or fumes in the area, a trapped person could be found alive.
But not always. On Wednesday, Col. Golan Vach, commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit, told CNN that tunnels “big enough to possibly have people between them” were found in the debris but it led to the discovery of more bodies.
How do rescue crews search for voids?
A lot of voids aren’t usually found in “pancaked” buildings like the one in Surfside, but there are some, Gomez said.
As crews remove rubble and start “peeling back layers,” they’ll put mini cameras in cracks to help them figure out if there’s a void, Gomez said. Other times, crews might find a “tunnel” or an open space as they move a rock, a piece of wood or a big boulder.
Crew members will also crawl into potential voids to search for victims. That’s how some survivors were found in the twin towers in New York on 9/11 and in Haiti’s earthquake, Gomez said.
“If they see a person that’s alive in one of these voids, they’re going to try to do everything within their power” to get him or her out, Gomez said. But, it’s a “very meticulous process.”
Crews will start cutting or excavating the debris to reach survivors. If there are signs that the pile could become unstable and possibly collapse on the void, crews use equipment to “shore up” the area to reduce the risk, he said.
Sometimes, people are found with a leg or arm pinned by a slab of concrete or other heavy debris. When that happens, a doctor trained for these types of rescues will be called in. Sometime, an amputation is needed to save a life, Gomez said.
The search-and-rescue mission was temporarily paused, but resumed Thursday evening.
Miami Herald staff writer Ben Conarck contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 4:44 PM.
