99 People Still Unaccounted For At Collapsed Miami Condo As Investigation Continues For Reason Building Failed

Sarah RumpfJun 24th, 2021, 5:18 pm
 

Somber news out of Surfside, Fl. where a high-rise condo building partially collapsed in the early hours of Thursday morning: 99 people are still unaccounted for as a massive search-and-rescue operation is underway and investigators continue to search for a reason the building so catastrophically failed.

“Hundreds of first responders immediately rushed to the scene going from balcony to balcony to rescue people trapped,” reported MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin. So far, 35 people have been rescued from the building, 10 injured, and at least one person has died.

Mohyeldin introduced footage from a nearby security camera showing the moment that the building collapsed, and then brought on NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard, who was on the scene in Surfside, north of Miami.

“It’s a tough number to grapple with — 99 unaccounted for,” said Hillyard, noting that officials were hoping that the real numbers were lower, because some of the units may have been owned by “snowbirds,” the retirees who flock to Florida’s warmth in the winter, but spend summers elsewhere. In the meantime, officials were attempting to contact all unit owners to get a more accurate picture of who was in the building at the time.

Search efforts were temporarily delayed due to a fire that was burning in the rubble, said Hillyard, but first responders still held out hope because people have been able to survive for hours, even days, in collapsed buildings if they’re in an area with a pocket of oxygen.

Gas, water, and electrical have all been shut off to the building, including the still-standing northeast tower, which was evacuated after it was determined to be structurally unsound as well. “There are serious concerns about the surrounding perimeter because we still do not know what it was that took down this tower here early this morning,” said Hillyard.

Mohyeldin then brought on Kobi Karp, a Miami-area architect, and Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (Ret.), who served as the commander of the joint task force that coordinated relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

The building, constructed in 1981, was a “rather young building,” said Karp. This was a common building style used throughout coastal South Florida since the 1920s, he said, “a concrete structure with columns on concrete slabs.”

Mohyeldin asked Karp what he thought could have been the reason for the collapse.

“Looking at the video you can see the failure happened at the inside core of the building meaning, where the horizontal concrete slabs meet the vertical concrete columns structure which led to the collapse of the slabs, one on top of another, and you can see leaving the facade facing the ocean, facing east, left standing and then falling back onto the west — That shows, to me, the failure occurred inside the building, which is very unique.”

Honoré praised the work of the search and rescue team involved, calling them “one of the best teams in the world,” equipped with the technology and experience to be able to rescue as many people as possible in the days to come.

He was praying that the team would have good luck continuing to find people alive, adding that he was sure it was “some type of architectural or building failure that caused this to happen.”

“When you build on a wetland, the state and city has standards for inspections,” said Honoré. “Something went wrong that will be determined later…This is not an act of God. This has got to be dealt with, in a destination city like Miami, are the rest of the buildings safe? People come there to relax.”

During a press conference earlier in the day, President Joe Biden had said that he was waiting to get word from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to deploy FEMA resources to the site.

Honoré noted that this incident had affected “this one building, not a whole block, not a whole city,” and he thought the existing team on the ground could handle it.

Other Florida elected officials took a different view. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D) tweeted that it was “critical” for DeSantis to declare a state of emergency “so the federal government can allocate resources we desperately need.” Levine Cava noted that she had already requested for DeSantis to take action on this “immediately — there is no time to waste.”

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D), a frequent DeSantis critic who is challenging him in the 2022 gubernatorial election, retweeted Cava’s post and added her own comments in English and Spanish. “Like [Mayor Levine Cava] said,” wrote Fried, “there’s no time to waste on this,” telling the governor that it was “crucial” for him to “declare a state of emergency ASAP.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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Sarah Rumpf - Contributing Editor

Sarah Rumpf joined Mediaite in 2020 and is a Contributing Editor focusing on politics, law, and the media. A native Floridian, Sarah attended the University of Florida, graduating with a double major in Political Science and German, and earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the UF College of Law. Sarah's writing has been featured at National Review, The Daily Beast, Reason, Law&Crime, Independent Journal Review, Texas Monthly, The Capitolist, Breitbart Texas, Townhall, RedState, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Austin-American Statesman, and her political commentary has led to appearances on television, radio, and podcast programs across the globe. Follow Sarah on Threads, Twitter, and Bluesky.