‘I’m still in search mode.’ Families, friends of Surfside victims react to news of recovery
On the first official day of search and recovery at the site of the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South, family and friends of missing persons reacted with a mix of resignation and stubborn hope for the lives of their loved ones.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava assured families during a press briefing on Thursday morning that first responders would not stop searching for residents in the rubble until every person was found. As of Thursday morning, 60 people had been found dead and 80 others were still missing. On Wednesday night, rescuers held a vigil to honor the lives lost during the tragedy before they continued the painstaking search for bodies.
Lourdes Losada, the college roommate of Maria Teresa Rovirosa, stood at the memorial wall on Thursday looking up at the photo of her friend of 40 years high up on the chain-link fence. Losada paused in speaking about her friend, who along with her husband is still missing in the collapse.
“She had a heart of... she was just a great person. I can’t come to the words right now because I’m still in shock,” Losada said of her friend. “She would take what she had and give it to everybody.”
Losada said that Wednesday night’s news of an official shift from search-and-rescue to recovery efforts only enforced what she already knew.
“We expected that they weren’t going to make it after the third or fourth day,” she said. “She was a fighter, and so was her husband, but I knew they weren’t going to make it.”
At the foot of the fence — adorned with stuffed animals, photographs, a Puerto Rican flag, a cardboard sign reading “Strength, Faith, Hope, Love,” and slowly wilting flowers — several others stood, signing their names to the markers, laying down flowers, or just gazing at the wall.
At Losada’s feet lay a new trove of objects, some of which a police officer nearby said had been recovered from the site of the collapse and brought to the wall by rescue workers. A pack of cigarettes, a psalm book, a stapled paper handout on “critical incident stress management,” black slippers, plastic wrap from an emptied flower bouquet, and a children’s toy water gun all lay inches apart before the wall.
Nearby, a T-shirt on the ground read “To the stolen lives of Miami.” A yellow sign on the fence said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Though authorities announced that their efforts to find victims of the Surfside building collapse had transitioned from a rescue to a recovery mission, Rachel Spiegel said she is “praying for a miracle” — that her 65-year-old mother, Judy, survived the disaster.
“I believe in my mom and we’re not going to give up until we’re reunited. We’re not giving up hope,” Spiegel told the Miami Herald.
Spiegel told reporters Wednesday she has been in Surfside every day since the collapse and hasn’t been home to put her children to bed at night.
If their roles were reversed, she said, her mother wouldn’t leave her side, either.
“I haven’t even approached real life yet,” she said. “I’m still in search mode, you know. Mission: Find Mommy.”
Spiegel considers her mother to be “the second mom” to daughters Scarlett, 4, and Sloane, 2.
Although she’s holding out hope that her mother survived the collapse, she said she dreads the thought of telling Scarlett that her grandmother, and “best friend,” passed away. During the pandemic, Judy took over child care and taught Scarlett how to read, write and count, her husband, Kevin Spiegel, previously told the Herald.
“My mom is her rock,” Rachel Spiegel said.
This story was originally published July 8, 2021 at 4:10 PM.
