Rescue work resumes ‘in areas that are safe’ at condo site as Biden leaves South Florida

After a 15-hour hiatus, the search-and-rescue effort at Champlain Towers South Condo resumed Thursday evening, just as President Joe Biden boarded a plane and concluded his visit to South Florida.

Biden’s visit, 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. Rescuers have so far recovered the bodies of 18 people, and say another 145 remain missing.

“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.

Earlier in the day, Biden met with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and other elected leaders in a conference room at the St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort. He said the federal government had decided to cover 100% of the rescue and recovery costs for the first 30 days.

“Mr. President, we cannot thank you enough,” Levine Cava said. “You called me that morning. You said whatever we need, and I said bring FEMA and here they are.”

Said DeSantis: “We thank you for the support. ... There’s been no bureaucracy. What we need now is we need a little bit of luck, a little bit of prayer.”

Meeting with first responders

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.

After meeting with first responders, he said he was moved by the life-threatening risks they were taking but wanted to make sure rescuers got the mental health help they might need.

“When I spoke to those first responders, I pointed out they’re under a lot of stress and they should take advantage of those mental health” resources, he said.

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 Thursday at 4:45 p.m., 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.

But the rescue effort — for the time being — will only continue on three of the nine grids because of loose concrete on the upper floors of the building and the instability of the rubble, said FEMA structural engineer Scott Nacheman.

“Debris in the pile and debris in the building displaced,” he said. The building itself has not moved, Nacheman said.

“We still can’t go in the collapsed area, it’s too dangerous,” said Levine Cava.

Levine Cava also said the county is “planning for the likely demolition of the building,” even as the search-and-rescue work continues.

But Nacheman said if it is demolished, it won’t be for several weeks.

“Best case scenario,” he said, “we’re looking at weeks.” Nacheman said before demolition begins more studies have to be undertaken and the stakeholders need to come to some type of agreement.

South Florida is also bracing for the possible arrival of a tropical storm early next week that could affect the site, and Levine Cava said the National Weather Service will be on-site starting Friday to offer the latest updates.

Late Wednesday, Miami-Dade police identified two sisters, 10-year-old Lucia Guara and 4-year-old Emma Guara, as victims in the condo collapse. Their parents also died.

No bodies were recovered on Thursday.

Structural issues

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.

“It’s very accurate,” Castro said.

Cominsky 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.

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.

Still, 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.”

As for President Biden, he arrived in South Florida Thursday morning along with the first lady. Residents and officials were hoping that Biden’s visit offers comfort to the small condo community just north of Miami Beach, and the frustrated rescue workers piecing through the gigantic heap of twisted concrete and metal.

“The president will at least energize them, so at least the families will know people care,” said Surfside resident Antonio Pons, who lives near the collapse site.

Biden also met with the Surfside police officers who initially responded to the Champlain Towers collapse and worked dispatch. Officers Craig Lovellette, Ariol Lage and Kemuel Gambirazio were the first officers on scene of the collapse for Surfside police, assisted by Officer Joseph Matthews working dispatch.

The police officers in Surfside, which does not have a fire department, were the first agency to respond to the collapse about 1:20 a.m., the town said.

Attendees at Thursday’s “unified command briefing” included Florida U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, and Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, all Republicans, and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat who represents Surfside, and Deanne Criswell, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local officials included Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez, Miami-Dade Chief Public Safety Officer J.D. Patterson and Cominsky, the fire chief.

“Let me say just one more thing. You know what’s good about this — the way you’ve cooperated?” Biden said during Thursday’s meeting. “We’re letting the nation know we can cooperate.”

DeSantis, a Republican who has been critical of Biden’s policies and is mulling a presidential run in 2024, praised the president Thursday.

“Well, thank you, Mr. President. And you’ve recognized the severity of this tragedy from Day One. And you’ve been very supportive,” DeSantis said. “We, in Florida — you know, you’ll drive up and down these coastal roads, you’ll see these buildings. And I’ve driven by that building; probably never thought twice.“

Not everyone was thrilled with Biden’s visit. Richard Silverstein, a Surfside resident whose fellow Shul of Bal Harbour congregants are among the missing, said the visit — one week after the partial condo collapse — comes “a little too late.”

“I think it’s going to impede and slow down the rescue efforts,” Silverstein said. “It is what it is.”

Levine Cava, in a tweet Thursday morning, sought to allay such concerns, saying that the presidential visit “will have no impact on our search & rescue mission.”

“We’re deeply grateful that our community remains a top priority for the president as he continues to provide the full support of the federal government,” she wrote.

The federal government has offered wide support, from helping victims relocate to dispatching scientists and experts to help determine what caused the 40-year-old building to suddenly collapse in the middle of the night, as residents and guests slept.

Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said more than 60 FEMA members are on site at Surfside, and five additional FEMA urban search-and-rescue teams were to arrive Thursday.

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, which has been in Surfside since Sunday, said Wednesday that it will launch a full investigation into the building collapse, and what changes in laws, building codes and regulations could be made to prevent a similar tragedy. The agency pushed safety reforms after investigating the collapse of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in 2001.

Miami Herald staff writers Marie-Rose Sheinerman, Colleen Wright, Allie Pitchon, Ben Conarck and Charles Rabin contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 6:30 AM.