LIVE UPDATES: Condo collapse death toll rises to 36 as Tropical Storm Elsa approaches state

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said a letter to oceanfront condo boards and building owners will go out Wednesday advising them of the "minimum stopgap" measures an engineer hired by the city and a Surfside building official believe should be taken to provide residents “with a basic level of confidence that their building is not obviously unsafe.” 

“This is clearly only an interim step until we get the final results from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), which may not be known for quite a while,” Burkett said Tuesday evening.

He said the city is doing everything to ensure residents’ safety and peace of mind.  

Three victims whose bodies were recovered from the Surfside, Fla., collapse rubble were identified Tuesday.

They are Nancy Kress Levin, 76; Jay Kleiman, 52; and 67-year-old Francis Fernandez.

All three were recovered on Monday, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a Tuesday evening news conference that 29 of the 36 people confirmed dead have been identified. 

Search and rescue teams are continuing to work despite rain and string wind conditions. A meteorologist is embedded with workers in the collapse site to make sure crews are safe and to give weather updates, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. 

Crews paused for about two hours because of lighting and winds over 30 mph as Tropical Storm Elsa approaches Florida, the mayor said. 

First responders and county workers have gone “above and beyond” since the Champlain Towers South collapsed on June 24, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. 

“They ran into the rubble of the collapsed building and they haven’t stopped since, pulling people out,” she said. 

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett added to Cava’s comments, saying they “ran into the building immediately following being told the building was in danger of collapse.”

Cava also thanked the Miami-Dade Police Department and other agencies helping families impacted by the disaster.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said President Biden called her Tuesday to “check-in” on the community and to make sure the federal government was providing needed support to the families of survivors, she said. 

“He continues to send his prayers and love to all of the families and all of the first responders,” she said.

Another four victims were recovered from the Surfside condo collapse site, bringing the total number of dead to 36, officials said.

Florida officials will give update on rescue efforts at 5:30 P.M. ET.

Crews remove debris from the condo collapse site that was once the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Fla. Around 5 million pounds have been removed, officials said Tuesday morning. (Miami-Dade Fire Rescue)

More than 200 first responders from across the United States are working in and around the condo collapse site in Surfside, Fla., Miami-Dade Fire Rescue tweeted Tuesday afternoon. 

As of the morning, teams have removed 4,207 cubic yards of debris from the rubble, the agency said. 

“Task force teams continue to delayer the debris, digging and removing rubble in a systematic manner,” it said. 

At an earlier news conference, officials said around 5 million pounds had been removed from the site where the Champlain Towers South building once stood. 

Rescue crews work at the site of the collapsed Champlain Towers South condo building after the remaining structure was demolished Sunday in Surfside, Fla. Many people are unaccounted for in the rubble. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Officials said Tuesday they were not seeing any new signs of life in the rubble that was once the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Fla.

Furthermore, rescue efforts have been complicated by strong winds and rain from the outer bands of Tropical Storm Elsa that lashed the Miami area, The Associated Press reported. 

Search-and-rescue workers continue to look for open spaces where people might be found alive nearly two weeks after the disaster struck at the building.

“We’re actively searching as aggressively as we can,” Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said at a news conference. “Unfortunately, we are not seeing anything positive. The key things — void spaces, living spaces — we’re not seeing anything like that.”

Rescue workers use a tarp for recovered remains at the site of the collapsed Champlain Towers South condo building on Monday in Surfside, Fla. The remaining structure was demolished Sunday, which partially collapsed June 24. Many people remain unaccounted for. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Search and rescue crews have removed more than 124 tons – or 5 million pounds -- of debris from the Surfside collapse site, officials said Tuesday. 

Workers had a pause around 1 a.m. because of inclement weather, Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, left, and his wife Casey leave flags at a makeshift memorial near the Champlain Towers South condo building on Saturday. (AP)

Florida’s first-term Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has been smack in the middle of the national spotlight the past two weeks, from the horrific condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida to the impending tropical storm Elsa. 

DeSantis – a conservative congressman who was narrowly elected Florida governor in 2018 with the support from then-President Trump – has seen his popularity surge among Republican voters in Florida and around the nation, thanks in large part to his steering of his state amid the coronavirus pandemic and his combative pushback against COVID restrictions.

And that’s fueled speculation about possible national ambitions and a potential 2024 Republican presidential nomination run by DeSantis. 

Political strategists say that while dealing with these crises obviously outweighs any campaign concerns, being in front of cameras and in the national spotlight day after day does bring some benefits. 

Click here to read more. 

(AP)

An American flag and fresh flowers are shown on a barricade just south of the collapsed Champlain Towers South condo building on Tuesday.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett says winds from the approaching Tropical Storm Elsa is “hampering the large cranes moving very heavy debris. 

“That is a challenge they are attempting to work around right now,” he added. 

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava says rescue workers combing the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo collapse side have found four additional victims, bringing the death toll to 32. 

As of Tuesday morning, 113 people remain unaccounted for, she added. 

Florida officials are giving an update on search and rescue efforts at the Champlain Towers South collapse site. 

Click here to watch.  

Rescue workers move a stretcher containing recovered remains Monday at the site of the collapsed Champlain Towers South condo building, in Surfside, Fla. (AP)

At least five lawsuits have been filed so far on behalf of Champlain Towers South survivors or those feared dead, seeking answers as to why the collapse happened and who is to blame, the Associated Press is reporting. 

"We deserve to be able to walk into buildings without worrying that they’re going to come crumbling around us and to know that our loved ones can go to bed at night without worrying that they’re going to plummet 12 stories to the ground below in their sleep," Jeffrey Goodman, whose firm has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the children of missing resident Harold Rosenberg, told the news agency. 

Click here to read more. 

Fox Extreme Weather Center

A hurricane watch was issued for a portion of the west-central and Big Bend coast of Florida -- as Tropical Storm Elsa approaches, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Tuesday morning.

Hurricane conditions are possible in those areas either Tuesday night or early Wednesday.

Tropical storm conditions are expected across portions of the Florida Keys and much of the state's west coast, which is in danger of life-threatening storm surge, the NHC stated.

The latest forecasts showed Tropical Storm Elsa moving westward, mostly sparing South Florida from the storm, as rescuers in Surfside continue to search for survivors.

Another day of unsettled weather was expected in South Florida, the Associated Press reported.

https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic/status/1412335891373125632/photo/1

Home Depot department supervisor, Arnaldo Gonzalez, loads water bottles into Elena Arvalo's shopping cart as shoppers prepare for possible effects of tropical storm Elsa in Miami on Saturday, July 3, 2021

Tropical Storm Elsa entered the Florida Straits Tuesday morning and is headed towards the Florida Keys after drenching Cuba and killing at least three people in the Caribbean. 

The National Weather Service took to Twitter for a 2 a.m. ET public advisory, alerting that conditions are "beginning to deteriorate" across the Keys. South Florida has already been impacted by the storm, and work conditions have worsened at the building collapse site in Surfside. 

WSVN reported that the storm’s maximum sustained winds hit about 60 mph late Monday and was headed north-northwest at about 12 mph. The storm has been blamed for flooding rains in Cuba and damaged hundreds of homes in Barbados, the BBC reported. The report said the storm now seems to be drifting to the west and will spare Florida from a direct hit.

Click here to read more.

This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken Monday, July 5, 2021, at 4:50 p.m. EDT, and provided by NOAA, shows Tropical Storm Elsa over western Cuba with strong rain and winds

Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall in Western Cuba Monday afternoon as it barreled toward Florida.

Heavy rain from the storm will hit Cuba and the Cayman Islands through Monday night, which the National Hurricane Center warned could cause significant mudslides in Cuba.

The storm is expected to batter Central and Western Cuba overnight before it continues to parts of the Florida Keys and Florida’s Gulf Coast Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Click here to read more.

Demolition teams bring down the unstable remainder of the Champlain Towers South condo building, late Sunday, July 4, 2021, in Surfside, Fla. The work to demolish the remains had suspended the search-and-rescue mission, but officials said Sunday it should eventually open up new areas for rescue teams to explore. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Rescue teams combed through closets, looked under beds and even used drones with thermal imaging as they looked for pets that might have been left in the ruins of Champlain Towers South before a decision was made to demolish the still-standing section of the building, officials said Monday.

The building was imploded on Sunday night, more than a week after it had partially collapsed, killing more than two dozen people and leaving more than 115 still missing.

Prior to the demolition, rescue teams conducted full sweeps looking for animals, searching every possible hiding place and — in the areas that were not accessible — using ladders on high-lift cranes to look through what was left of the 12-story building, Miami Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a news conference.

Click here to read more.