Champlain Towers East resident Luba Rosebach requests answers and further research after collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Fl.
Photographs show a collection of photographs and other mementos that mourners set up near the Surfside, Fla., collapse site.
At least 12 people have been confirmed dead and 149 remained unaccounted for Tuesday evening, nearly 6 days after the Champlain Towers South high rise apartment building fell apart near Miami.
Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said during a Tuesday evening news conference that that state is requesting additional federal assistance at the scene of the Surfside collapse and that another urban search and rescue team was expected to arrive soon from somewhere on the East Coast, possibly Virginia.
The move would help exhausted rescuers, who have been working in round-the-clock shifts since early Thursday morning, to get some rest.
{{#rendered}}Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava reported a 12th death in the Surfside high rise collapse Tuesday evening.
The number of residents who remain unaccounted for dropped to 149.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue tweeted images showing local and international rescuers continue to search the Surfside collapse scene Tuesday.
#MDFR #FLTF1 along with 7 other task force teams from Florida & the Israeli Task Force continue to search layer by layer of debris at the #SurfsideBuildingCollapse with approximately 3 million pounds of concrete removed from the debris field since Thursday," the department tweeted.
The rescue operation is in its fifth day after the Champlain Towers South condo high rise collapsed unexpectedly Thursday morning, leaving dozens unaccounted for and at least 11 dead.
Mike Noriega shares the 'shock' he experienced after arriving at the deadly scene on 'The Story'
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Steve Rosenthal, a Surfside condo collapse survivor, tells ‘The Faulkner Focus’ he thought it was a dream or an earthquake when the building disintegrated.
Click here to watch his interview.
A UConn pitcher and his family were able to make it out virtually unscathed and were able to save a woman as a Miami condo building collapsed last week, leaving nearly a dozen dead and more than 150 missing as of Tuesday.
Justin Willis, a junior from West New York, N.J., told the Hartford Courant on Saturday about how his family was able to get out of the building. He said he and his family were on vacation in Surfside, Fla., when he felt the building shake.
Willis said he felt a "gust of wind" and likened it to Superstorm Sandy, a major storm that pounded the Northeast in 2012. Willis said it sounded like a "jet took off right on top of our building. I was expecting to see a plane come right over our balcony."
Click here to read more on Fox News.
Magaly Ramsey tells Fox News that her 80-year-old Cuban-born mother, Magaly Delgado, is among the 150 still unaccounted for Tuesday following the Champlain Towers South condo building collapse.
“She loved living by the water, loved to travel and especially lately just loved being with our small family,” Ramsey said.
“We pray that she will be found, alive or not but the horrible rubble at the site shifts your miracle from being alive to at least being found,” she added.
Ramsey says the family had been planning a trip to California’s Napa Valley before the collapse occurred.
{{#rendered}}Florida officials are holding a press conference now on the search and rescue efforts.
Click here to watch.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Surfside on Thursday, the White House has confirmed.
These images from a commercial pool contractor, which were obtained by the Miami Herald , purportedly show cracked concrete, exposed rebar and a wet floor in the Champlain Towers South’s pool equipment room about 36 hours before the property partially collapsed last week.
Maxwell Marcucci of the crisis public relations firm Levick – who is acting as a spokesperson for the Champlain Towers South condo association – said following the release of the images that “the board retained experts and trusted experts -- and at no time were they told of imminent threat of danger or collapse.”
“If there was an issue, there were proper channels that could have been filed to take steps to rectify -- up to and including evacuation,” he added.
{{#rendered}}President Biden has told reporters this morning that he may visit the Surfside collapse site “as early as Thursday.”
Miami Beach says it has cancelled its upcoming Fire on the Fourth festival “out of respect for the families and victims affected by the tragic, June 24, 2021 building collapse in the neighboring Town of Surfside.”
The festival was set to be held 16 blocks south of the collapse site.
“Fireworks will once again light up the skies over Miami Beach this July 4 following a full day of family-friendly entertainment presented by Coca-Cola to mark the nation’s 245th birthday with the return of the city’s annual Fire on the Fourth celebration,” the city had said in an event page, before updating it to note that the event has been cancelled.
Firefighters sifting through the rubble of the collapsed building site are placing personal objects they have found amongst the debris at a makeshift memorial set up nearby for the 150 who still remain unaccounted for, according to FOX 13.
One of the items was a Winnie the Pooh bear with the phrase “Baby’s 1st Pooh Bear” on its shirt.
Leo Soto, who started the memorial wall, told WPEC that the first responders had tears in their eyes as they were bringing the toys to place at the site.
Click here to read more.
{{#rendered}}For the sixth day, rescue crews are on scene digging through the rubble of the collapsed Surfside Towers South condo building.
The developers of the collapsed Surfside condominium tower worked around local building codes by adding a penthouse that wasn’t part of the original plan, a review of town building records shows.
Plans submitted by the developer of the Champlain Towers South initially called for 12 floors of residential units.
The developer decided to add a penthouse, which increased the building’s height by about 9 feet with an additional floor. That put the tower slightly above the town’s legal height ordinance at the time.
The property owners built the penthouse after the Surfside town commission granted a special exemption to local height limits, according to a 1981 article in the Miami Herald.
Click here to read more on Fox Business.
More audio is emerging of the moments in which first responders arrived at the Surfside condo building collapse site.
"I see many people are [on] the balconies. There's no elevators. The building is gone. There are no elevators. It almost resembles the Trade Center," said a firefighter from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Engine 76, according to NBC6.
"Pull up to the light and stop. We need to contain this whole area. This building does not look stable," another firefighter reportedly said.
Click here to listen to the calls.
{{#rendered}}Two young students are among the 150 people still missing five days after the Florida condo collapse, a new report said.
There were 17 students in the Miami-Dade public school district registered to the Champlain Tower South building but two of them are unaccounted for, The Miami Herald reported.
The missing students weren’t identified by name or age, but a post from a teachers union group indicates the two are elementary aged.
Click here to read more.
A commercial pool contractor who was in the Champlain Towers South building about 36 hours before it collapsed last week has captured images purportedly showing cracked concrete, exposed rebar and a wet floor in its pool equipment room, the Miami Herald reports.
“There was standing water all over the parking garage,” the contractor – who asked to remain anonymous and was in the building to put together a bid for the restoration of the pool and its equipment – told the newspaper.
The contractor says he was being shown around by a building staff member.
“He thought it was waterproofing issues,” the contractor told the Miami Herald. “I thought to myself, that’s not normal.”
Click here to see the images.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Monday said families of those still missing after the condo collapse continue to wait for news on the fate of their loved ones -- as rescue efforts stretched into the 6th day Tuesday.
“We have people waiting and waiting and waiting for news," Mayor Cava told reporters. "We have them coping with the news that they might not have their loved ones come out alive and still hope against hope that they will. They’re learning that some of their loved ones will come out as body parts. This is the kind of information that is just excruciating for everyone.”
{{#rendered}}Miami-Dade police on Monday night released the names of three additional bodies that were recorded from the rubble.
The victims named Monday are: Marcus Joseph Guara, 52, Frank Kleiman, 55, and Michael Altman, 50.
The bodies of Kleiman and Altman were recovered Monday. Guara's body was recovered Saturday.
The president of the Champlain South Towers condo association, in an April letter, wrote that damage to the garage had gotten significantly worse since a 2018 inspection and that the concrete deterioration of the building was "accelerating," according to reports Monday.
In the April 9 letter, the condo board president, Jean Wodnicki, wrote how the building was in desperate need of repairs, and she urged residents to pay millions of dollars in assessments needed to fix structural problems.
She noted that in fall 2018, engineering firm Morabito Consultants was hired to inspect the building, reports said. The engineering report pointed out flaws of the building ahead of work that would be needed for the building to meet 40-year recertification in 2021, documents showed.
Click here to read more on Fox News
The Miami-area condominium collapse has so far left 11 people dead, 151 missing including the mother and grandmother of Pablo Rodriguez who told "Your World" on Monday that he’s expecting the worst."
After seeing the video, I had accepted that I’m never seeing my mother or my grandmother alive again," he said. "As for hope that we’re going to be able to see them, that for me doesn’t exist. I just hope that they’re able to at least recover them so we can give them a proper burial."
The night before the incident, Rodriguez recalled speaking with his mother who mentioned she was awoken by a loud creaking sound in the middle of the night. Her son said he regrets not acting on the occurrence sooner.
Click here to read more on Fox News.
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