“As soon as the preparation is ready, the site is secured and the team is ready to go, we will begin the demolition,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a news conference Sunday morning. She said the “top priority is that the building come down as soon as possible … and as safely as possible.”
Search efforts paused Saturday around 4 p.m. so engineers could secure the site and prepare for the demolition, which officials have said is crucial to allowing authorities to continue to look for survivors safely, eliminating the threat posed by the part of the structure that’s still standing.
Officials did not provide a timeline for the demolition in a news conference Sunday morning — the 11th day since approximately 55 of the building’s 136 units collapsed early June 24, killing at least 24 people. As of Sunday, 121 people were still unaccounted for.
“We just miss them so much already, we wish this tragedy didn’t happen, and will always remember them,” Mejias said.
Appearing on Sunday’s “Face the Nation” on CBS, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett underscored that authorities are still working with the mindset that this remains a rescue effort.
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“It is absolutely not a recovery effort,” Burkett said, later adding, “There is 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 is pulled out of that debris.”
Demolition plans and a race against the storm
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 15 counties Saturday — including Miami-Dade County — because of Tropical Storm Elsa.
“We’re preparing for the risk of isolated tornadoes, storm surge, heavy rainfall and flash flooding,” DeSantis said, adding the state has “begun executing contingency plans for the Tropical Storm Elsa and Surfside co-response.”
A tropical storm warning has been issued for the Florida Keys and a tropical storm watch is in effect for parts of southwest Florida.
Elsa was a Category 1 hurricane Friday and early Saturday, but weakened to a tropical storm as it took aim at the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Forecasters say the storm’s center will not directly impact Surfside, though the city could be affected by its outer bands, with wind gusts and rain starting in the area as early as Monday morning.
The potential for weather-related issues at the collapse site is influencing authorities’ decisions on the ground. “We’re still very hopeful that we can do the demolition before the storm,” Levine Cava said Saturday night. “We are proceeding as quickly as we possibly can.”
Search and rescue operations were briefly suspended Thursday after engineers noted shifting on the debris pile that posed a danger to the rescue crews, officials said. After operations resumed later that day, authorities confirmed a demolition would likely be necessary to keep rescue crews and the collapse site safe for further searches.
Sunday, the condominium board for Champlain Towers East, a sister building of Champlain Towers South, suggested its residents evacuate ahead of the demolition, according to a letter from the condo association’s board of directors obtained by CNN.
The letter says that while guidance has not been given yet, they are encouraging residents to evacuate in advance as streets nearby will be congested due to the demolition. They also ask residents to take their pets and valuables, including passports and valuable documents, with them.
“Our building foundation has been checked multiple times, but we make this suggestion in an abundance of caution,” it reads. “We do not expect any impact to us but you can’t be too careful under the circumstances.”
Levine Cava announced Saturday that the firm Controlled Demolition, Inc. will handle the demolition of the remaining Champlain Towers South structure.
“They have done other large demolitions,” Levine Cava said, adding that the company was “evaluating the scene right now.”
The governor expressed his support for the demolition plan ahead of Elsa’s impact and said Saturday he believes it would be best for the building to be down before the storm arrives. “With these gusts potentially, it would create a really big hazard.”
Burkett also assured residents Saturday that the demolition shouldn’t impact other buildings in the area.
Burkett said he’s taken calls from concerned citizens who are worried about potential environmental impacts from the debris. But the materials from the debris pile were tested by a company hired by the structural engineers and “there were no significant issues in the debris,” Burkett told reporters Saturday night.
Survivors unlikely to retrieve belongings before demolition
As for the survivors, the demolition could mean forfeiting not only their homes but also their possessions.
Those whose condos were not affected by the collapse had to evacuate without many of their belongings, leaving behind clothes, valuables and family photographs. But officials have indicated it won’t be safe for them to go back inside to retrieve those items.
“At this time we’re told that the building is unsafe. People are not going into the building,” Levine Cava told CNN on Friday when asked whether survivors could collect their belongings. “I do not know how that could occur.”
DeSantis echoed those comments in Saturday morning’s news conference, telling reporters, “At the end of the day that building is too unsafe to let people go back in.”
“I know there’s a lot of people who were able to get out, fortunately, who have things there,” DeSantis said. “We’re very sensitive to that, but I don’t think there’s any way you can let somebody go up in that building, given the shape that it’s in now.”
Asked Sunday whether families of the victims would be able to recover items that belonged to those they lost, such as their clothes, Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez III said homicide detectives had been “collecting items that are retrievable, and are logging them and documenting them at this time.”
Any type of heirloom that is safe to retrieve is being documented to “be addressed at a later date with family members,” he said.
Additionally, a system has been set up for family members to report property they are looking for, Ramirez said.
Complaints over construction of high-rise
Saturday, CNN learned the developer behind Eighty Seven Park, the high-rise recently erected next to Champlain Towers South, offered the Surfside tower’s condominium board $400,000 amid complaints over the construction.
Construction on that building was the source of complaints, including at least one from a condo board member to a Surfside building official in January 2019, documents obtained by CNN show.
Under the agreement sent by the group behind the luxury building, residents of Champlain Towers South would have had to release the developer from liability and the condominium board would have had to publicly support the development in letters sent to the town of Surfside and Miami Beach, where Eighty Seven Park was being built, in exchange for the payment, according to a person familiar with the matter. The buildings are on opposite sides of the border between the cities.
The agreement was presented in 2019, according to The Washington Post, which first reported on it.
It was never signed by the Champlain Towers South condominium board, Max Marcucci, a spokesman for the board told CNN.
Friday, Robert McKee, an attorney for one of the Champlain Towers South residents suing the condominium board, suggested in a court hearing that the civil plaintiffs should investigate the neighboring building, calling the developer “a potential significant possible defendant.”
CNN has reached out to the developer behind Eighty Seven Park for comment on the proposed agreement.
CNN’s Brian Todd, Natasha Chen, Kevin Conlon, Claudia Dominguez, Casey Tolan and Haley Brink contributed to this report.