What was left of Champlain Towers South had hampered authorities’ massive search-and-rescue effort for days, at one point leading them to pause for 15 hours. Demolition was initially thought to be weeks away — until the increasingly urgent forecasts that said Elsa could lash the area with strong winds and heavy rain.
Officials worried that the squalls would topple the remaining building onto the debris pile, further burying potential survivors and bodies. So at 10:30 p.m. Sunday, an emergency team activated strategically placed charges and brought the structure down in a cloud of dust, an eerily familiar sight for a community still grieving lost loved ones and upended lives.
With plans to have the building leveled, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D) said she expects the recovery effort to resume as soon as it is safe to do so. Firefighters will then survey parts of the site that were previously inaccessible, she said.
“Bringing down this building in a controlled manner is critical to expanding our scope of the search-and-rescue effort and allowing us to explore the area closest to the building,” Levine Cava said before the demolition at a Sunday news conference.
The building’s instability and its destruction were the latest challenges to a search that had already been complicated by rainstorms, lightning strikes and fires. Emergency personnel paused their operations Saturday and Sunday while the site was readied for demolition. The would-be rescuers continue to face mounting odds as they sweep the rubble for survivors. Since the hours after the collapse, nobody has been found alive.
Miami-Dade police identified another person Sunday evening. The body of David Epstein, 58, was recovered Friday, the department tweeted. The death toll stands at 24, with 121 people still unaccounted for.
Elsa weakened from a hurricane over the weekend and was predicted to hit the state late Monday and into Tuesday. On Sunday night, President Biden declared a state of emergency for Florida and offered help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to a White House news release. The storm could force another work stoppage, Levine Cava said.
“We pray for the limited impacts of the storm in Surfside so that we can continue unimpeded,” she said.
If it does not derail the effort, Elsa may ultimately be “a blessing in disguise,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said, expediting the building demolition and making way for larger teams of rescuers. It could clear nearly a third of the site that was previously inaccessible, he said.
“This demolition is going to open up wide the whole area,” Burkett said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning. “And we’re going to be able to pour resources onto that pile. . . . We are going to attack it big-time, and we are going to try to pull those victims out and reunite them with their families.”
In the national television appearance, Burkett emphasized that authorities still have a rescue mind-set and are approaching the mission hoping to find survivors, rather than pivoting to recovery, which would primarily entail looking for bodies.
“It’s absolutely not a recovery effort,” Burkett said, citing the case of a woman in Bangladesh who survived for 17 days buried beneath a collapsed factory. “We’re not even near that. And, you know, there’s nobody in charge really talking about stopping this rescue effort. And this rescue effort, as far as I’m concerned, will go on until everybody’s pulled out of that debris.”
As officials prepared for the demolition, some residents and animal activists urged them to delay, fearing that pets left behind in the building could be forever lost in the blast. An online petition calling for a postponement garnered more than 17,000 signatures. Local leaders said authorities have checked the building again and again, using drones and infrared imaging technology, but have not found animals.
“We have done absolutely everything possible to locate any animals left in the building, and our first responders have put themselves at great risk in their search efforts,” Levine Cava said.
Shortly before the building was razed, Judge Michael Hanzman of Florida’s 11th Circuit Court held an emergency hearing for a condo resident who asked the court to allow her to enter her unit to search for her lost pet before the demolition. Hanzman said he was sympathetic, but he denied the motion, saying he wouldn’t “second-guess the wisdom” of officials and engineering experts.
Other survivors have worried about losing family heirlooms, wedding rings, photographs — all the things they left behind as they fled for their lives more than a week ago.
“Those who were forced to evacuate the remaining portion of the building left their entire lives behind,” Levine Cava said.
Hours before the demolition, on a sweltering Sunday afternoon, the still-standing portion looked nearly normal: Intact balconies with potted plants and patio furniture, pieces of peoples’ lives visible from across the street. A couple of sliding glass doors appeared to be open, as though their residents had just briefly stepped away.
Laura Hernandez, a friend of Graciela Cattarossi, whose body was recovered alongside daughter Stella’s, said she understood the decision to demolish the building quickly.
“What I think about the most is all the people trying to recover those bodies,” she said. “Because they’re still alive, and it’s not fair to put them at risk.”
“I definitely don’t want to see it or hear it at all,” Nir said in a text message. “It’s terrifying watching it all ‘collapse’ again. I don’t want to hear and feel the rumble.”
Darrell Arnold lives about a block from what used to be Champlain Towers South. He and his wife have whiled away many days at the beach behind the condo, their choice spot for swimming and sunbathing. Arnold said he hopes a memorial is someday erected in its place.
“In some ways, before the event, the building was just another building on the beach,” he said. “Now it’s a site of trauma and tragedy, a sign of — I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is. Is it a sign of mismanagement, over-optimism, negligence? I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.”
Kim Bellware contributed to this report.
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