Jeffrey Rose’s parents own an apartment in the building that partially collapsed in Surfside, Florida, early Thursday. “Luckily, they went out of town last week,” he said, but the residential complex holds many memories for him.
“My son learned to swim in the pool at the building behind us. I had his first birthday there. I had my 35th birthday there. My son plays tennis right behind us at the community center,” he told CNN.
The Surfside community is a small, family-oriented and tight-knit community, Rose added.
“Everyone has some connection, with somebody in this building,” he said. “A lot of people really just want to know what they can donate, what they can do. They’re opening up their homes, if people need somewhere to stay … We all know somebody that’s been affected by this.”
The building’s collapse has been a “terrible tragedy” for a lot of people in the neighborhood, Rose added.
“They are just hoping, you know, for a miracle right now, to find somebody,” he said Friday.