Grieving Surfside condo families want officials to keep searching in piles of rubble for remains

Families still grieving the loss of loved ones killed in the Surfside condo collapse are demanding authorities keep sifting through the rubble for as long as it takes to find remains. 

Many families of the 98 victims have received just trace amounts of remains after the Florida complex collapsed on June 24. 

Friends and family of New Yorker Estelle Hedaya, 54, said they received so little of the victim’s remains that they could easily lift her casket. 

‘I could have lifted it with my pinkie,’ her best friend Lisa Shrem told the Washington Post. 

After the initial recovery effort at the site was complete, officials moved the rubble to a location 14 miles from the condos, near Miami International Airport. 

The rubble has been separated into two piles, based on supposed value of the evidence it might hold. The portions that crews have determined to contain possible remains are moved inside a warehouse, while the rest is left outside. 

The county has requested a judge’s permission to dispose of debris they consider irrelevant to the investigation. 

‘It’s very sad to hear how Miami-Dade County wants to throw everything away in the trash and make us forget and move past this,’ said Martin Langesfeld, 24, who lost his twin sister, Nicole, and her new husband, Luis Sadovnic, 28, in the collapse.

‘They were people with families and emotions. And they cannot be thrown away with trash.’ 

Many families aren’t convinced all the remains have been found. Throughout the four searches, crews continued to produce more and more remains. 

In addition, the heat wave in Miami all summer has compromised remains and could have made some indistinguishable to an untrained eye. 

‘We have very small percentages of loved ones,’ Langesfeld told the Washington Post. His family has only received around 50 percent of Nicole’s remains. 

Langesfeld said sifting through the rubble four times wasn’t enough if there is still a chance remains could be found. 

‘I’m telling them to search one more time at least, because we have very small percentages of loved ones,’ he told the Washington Post. 

‘If it takes a hundred times or a thousand times, then that’s what needs to happen.’ 

Many families want a memorial to be constructed on the grounds of the South tower, but their plans were foiled when the property was sold for $120million.

A total of 55 apartments in the 136-unit condo complex collapsed, with around 80 percent of the building reportedly being occupied. Officials said at the time they believed the building had been ‘substantially full.’ 

Investigators probing the collapse reported the building had significant concrete structural damages to its pool deck area and garage area.  There was extensive corrosion to one of the main columns in the building’s foundation, the investigation found. 

The structure underneath the pool deck had significant damage and collapsed onto the garage below.