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Death toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 still missing
Officials say there are still 159 people unaccounted for after the partial collapse of a beachside building in Florida.
SAN FRANCISCO - Rescue efforts Friday were hampered by fires that broke out in the pile of rubble where part of the 12-story condominium building in Surfside, just north of Miami, collapsed just the day before.
Rescue crews worked through the smoke trying to find victims still buried somewhere under the debris. Officials said 159 people are still missing.
Strong wind gusts and rain shows slowed the search and rescue process. Two cranes began removing debris from the pile of rubble, pausing at times so rescue crews could remove smaller pieces and listen for any sounds of survivors.
"Any time that we hear a sound, we concentrate in that area," Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. "It could be just steel twisting, it could be debris raining down, but not specifically sounds of tapping or sounds of a human voice."
Jeannette Aguero and her family were able to make it out of the building after the adjacent wing collapsed about 1:30 a.m. Thursday. The structure tearing apart just down the hall from where they were sleeping.
"The whole building was sheared off. You could see into the darkness. You could see the roof caved in, you could see the hallway just ending," said Aguero.
Among the four people confirmed dead is Stacie Fang, a 54-year-old mother whose son, Jonah was found alive.
Friends and families of the 59 people missing faced another agonizing night of waiting.
Joseph Roth says he was hoping to find his stepfather and stepsister.
"It's just very frustrating when your family is in there and you're praying and you're hoping that someone can do something," said Roth.
Another man was looking for two friends who were staying at the Champlain Towers South with their young daughter because she was attending a camp.
"They were close friends, they don't speak English, they don't have any ID, they are missing," said the man.
Crews are continuing to use sonar, microphones, and canine units in their search for survivors.
The structure which was built in 1981 had been preparing to undergo a mandatory 40-year recertification and safety inspection process required by the City of Surfside Buildings Department.
"We need a definitive explanation as to how this could have happened," said Florida Governor Ron Desantis.
Structural engineers have been called in to help with both the search and rescue efforts, as well as the investigation into the cause of the collapse.
"The primary objective of the structural engineer yesterday and today is to help the search and rescue teams, create a safe scenario," said Emily Guglielmo, President of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California.
Guglielmo says structural engineers can also find clues to what might have caused the collapse in the pile of debris.
"Where did the failure initiate? Does it look like it was a failure that started at the top and came down? Does it look like a failure that was initiated at the base?" said Guglielmo, "So there are ways that we can look at the rubble, there are questions we can ask. We can ask building owners if they saw signs of settlements or instability, we can ask building owners if there were significant changes made? Were there new loads placed on the roof...we can look at what type of weather conditions were on site at the time, so there's a whole variety of tools that an engineer will do...to ultimately investigate and come up with the cause or probably more likely the causes of a failure of this degree."
Guglielmo says while Surfside's building recertification process is meant to catch structural defects, it is not a guarantee of safety and building owners nationwide need to be vigilant about maintaining structures and detecting potential problems.
"There is not a 40-year recertification process that is codified nationwide," said Guglielmo, "So whether or not a jurisdiction has a recertification process, it's absolutely incumbent upon the building owner to be aware of their structure and to keep an eye on, on how it's aging."