Condo collapse live updates: Four victims identified, North Miami Beach condo deemed unsafe
Rescue crews continue to search through the rubble for survivors at the 12-story oceanfront condo tower that partially collapsed in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach. The portion of Champlain Towers South that crumbled faces the ocean.
People with loved ones at the condo, missing or safe, should call 305-614-1819 to notify officials. Anyone who lives at the Champlain Towers and is safe is asked to complete a Wellness Check form to help the Miami-Dade County keep track of tenants.
Here’s what we know so far:
Four more victims identified in Surfside condo collapse, including a 7-year-old
10 p.m.: Miami-Dade police identified four more victims killed in the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South.
As of Friday night, 22 had died in the collapse and more than 120 are unaccounted for.
The four identified victims are: Bonnie Epstein, 56; Claudio Bonnefoy, 85; Maria Obias-Bonnefoy, 69; and a 7-year-old whose name was withheld at the family’s request, police said.
Read more here.
North Miami Beach condo evacuated, closed after deemed structurally unsafe in inspection
6 p.m.: The City of North Miami Beach has ordered the evacuation and closure of Crestview Towers Condiminium after a five-month old building inspection deemed it structurally unsafe.
On Friday evening, the 156-unit building’s residents were being evacuated in an “abundance of caution.”
This comes after the City of North Miami Beach launched a review of all condo high-rise buildings.
Crestview Towers submitted a recertification report from January in which an engineer concluded that the building was structurally and electrically unsafe.
Firefighters, collapse victim families prepare for possibility of Hurricane Elsa
3 p.m.: Margarita Castro, a member of the Florida Task Force 1 search and rescue team, said Friday that first responders are preparing “contingency plans” in case Hurricane Elsa affects rescue efforts at the site of the Champlain Towers South Condo collapse.
“It is very possible that depending on what we end up receiving that all work will stop,” she told reporters.
As of the 2 p.m. National Hurricane Center Friday update, Elsa had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph and higher gusts that stretch up to 140 miles from the center, mainly to the north. Hurricane-force winds extended 25 miles from the center. Elsa was about 95 miles west-northwest of St. Vincent and about 500 miles east-southeast of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Elsa passed over Barbados Friday morning. Forecasts call for Elsa to strengthen over the next day but weaken to a tropical storm while crossing Cuba.
Castro, who is a veteran Miami-Dade firefighter, said a final decision would not come down until the storm comes closer — possibly Saturday or Sunday. The plan depends on whether the storm hits directly or brushes by.
She told the Miami Herald that families of those missing have been informed that trucks and other “assets” aiding the rescue work may be removed from the collapse site Friday because authorities “can’t wait to remove everything at the last minute.” That won’t hinder rescue efforts, she said.
Heavy machinery would remain on site regardless of the impact a potential storm brings, and the rescuers rescuers work through rain, but when lightning strikes within 2.5 miles of the site they must stop for 30 minutes, Castro said.
“We all take this position knowing that there are dangers,” she said. ”We trust that the structural engineers and the people that are in charge of our safety are doing their job the same way they trust that we’re doing ours.”
She said rescuers’ mission is “to bring closure to these families, to be able to find their loved ones and give them something to be able to move on from this horrible tragedy that has happened here.”
Two more bodies found, raising death toll to 20
1:30 p.m.: Rescue teams discovered two more victims of the Surfside condo collapse overnight, raising the death toll to 20 as first responders continued the search amid the threats of shifting rubble underfoot, falling debris overhead and a hurricane in the forecast.
One of the two victims found Thursday night was the 7-year-old daughter of a City of Miami firefighter, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a press briefing on Friday. She did not provide details on the second body recovered from the rubble of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South.
Though every day since the disaster has been difficult for families of the missing and rescuers working in 12-hour shifts, Levine Cava said, Thursday’s discovery was especially tough.
Rescue work resumes at condo collapse after 15-hour pause for structural concerns
9 a.m.: Rescue teams carried on the search for life early Friday amid the shifting rubble and falling debris of the Surfside condo collapse, facing yet another challenge that has grown more dire over time — days of thunderstorms and rain that have destabilized the precarious pile, washing away clues that could lead them to people beneath the rubble and severely limiting the areas where it’s safe for them to search.
The search had paused for 15 hours on Thursday until structural engineers determined it was safe to dig again. With thunderstorms and rain likely in the forecast Friday, rescue teams worked in the shadow of the waterlogged wing of Champlain Towers South that’s still standing after a partial collapse of the building.
Authorities consider demolishing standing wing of Champlain Towers South
9 a.m.: A confluence of concerns about the stability of the remaining structure at the site of the Champlain Towers South collapse forced officials to call back rescue crews that had been working nonstop over the last week painstakingly removing debris and foraging trenches in desperate attempts to locate survivors.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky confirmed the development during a press briefing on Thursday morning. The agonizing decision, he said, was made just after 2 a.m. Cominsky described the threat of a large concrete column hanging over a subterranean parking area, which has moved six to 12 inches. He added that crews were also alerted to widening cracks and “slight movement” in a concrete slab on the southern side of the building.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue announced on Twitter at about 6 p.m. Thursday that work had resumed. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava later said that the work was continuing in areas that are safe. The pause in work lasted about 15 hours, resuming at 4:45 p.m., Levine Cava said.
In regard to the “likely demolition” of the remaining structure, Levine Cava said, “this is a decision that we need to make extremely carefully and methodically.”
Concrete testing yielded ‘curious results,’ report says
7:25 a.m.: Concrete testing at the Champlain Towers South condo last year “yielded some curious results,” engineering firm Morabito Consultants wrote in an October 2020 report obtained by the Miami Herald. But the report was silent on exactly what was unusual or alarming about it, an omission that surprised multiple experts who spoke with the Miami Herald.
“It doesn’t say what is curious about the results,” Abi Aghayere, a Drexel University engineering researcher, said after reviewing the report. “Were the [structural slab] depths lower than expected or much, much higher than expected?”
In the nine-page document, obtained by the Herald on Thursday, Frank Morabito and two others from his firm offered condo board president Jean Wodnicki and property manager Scott Stewart an update on Morabito’s ongoing work to prepare the building for costly repairs and renovations ahead of its 40-year recertification.
Another condo collapse victim identified
7:25 a.m.: Another victim pulled from the partial collapse of the Surfside condominium has been identified by Miami-Dade police.
As of Thursday night, the death toll remained at 18, with 145 people missing and 130 accounted for in the collapse of the Champlain South Towers last week.
The identified victim was Magaly Elena Delgado, 80, who was found on Wednesday.
Delgado had moved from Cuba in the 1960s in search of a better life. She had lived at Champlain Towers South for more than 10 years.
Key Facts
7:25 a.m: Here’s what to know Friday morning:
▪ The death toll is 18, including two children. The number of missing is 145. The Surfside building collapsed at 1:23 a.m. June 24. The tower fell while residents slept. The side of the building that collapsed faces the beach.
▪ Rescue crews had to pause their search efforts for 15 hours Thursday because of concerns that the remaining portion of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South Condo would fall. The search-and-rescue mission resumed Thursday evening, just as President Joe Biden boarded a plane and concluded his visit to South Florida.
▪ The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a little-known sub-agency of the Department of Commerce that investigated the fall of the Twin Towers after 9/11, plans to launch a full investigation to discover what caused the Champlain Towers South building’s collapse and what changes in laws, building codes and regulations could be made to prevent another failure of that kind.
▪ It will likely be months or even years before engineers and other experts know exactly why a part of the Champlain Towers South came crashing down.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 7:42 AM.
