Miami Mayor Declares a State of Emergency: 53 Tenants Safe, but 35 Still Missing in the Rubble

by Yehudit Garmaise

     Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has officially declared the nearby town of Surfside an emergency, and has requested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) arrive to help the workers, who have rescued and accounted for 53 tenants from the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condominium building at 8777 Collins Ave. that partially collapsed this morning at 1:15am last night.

     “We are just trying to get everyone out,” said Rabbi Mark Rosenberg who has been at the scene since 2:30am and is the chaplain of the Miami-Dade Police Department, which is heading up the efforts to rescue the tenants of the building, which was 85% occupied at the time of the collapse.

      One person has died, but the numbers of tenants who are safe and who are still missing are not 100% clear yet, said Rabbi Rosenberg, who moved from Boro Park in 2007 and who is a chaplain of the state troopers of the Florida Highway Patrol and also runs the Chesed Shel Emes.  “We are using sound devices, dogs, and vacuums because we hope and believe that there are still some people in there.”

      But search and rescue teams have to be very careful in their efforts the remains of the building are so precarious.

    “We are scared to move things too much around because we are scared we can make a [damaging] ripple effect,” Rabbi Rosenberg said. “The rest of the building is still in one piece, but it is at a tilt. Everything is cracked, and obviously that is a concern.

      “We are monitoring it with machinery, just in case it moves, chas v’shalom, that could mean a whole ‘nother disaster.”

      “Right now, the Fire and Rescue teams are continuing with the search and rescue and chesed shel chesed, which here also helps people with recovery, should our services be needed. We hope and pray that everyone who is missing is somehow found in a big hole or gap in between the floors.”

      The message that Rabbi Rosenberg, who is gathering up the list of people who are missing and “getting loved ones to where they need to be,” really wanted to relay is that: “Nobody should assume that people who are unaccounted for are not with us anymore because they are missing.

   “The people who were reported missing may not have been in town at all because not everyone lives here full-time, or they could be at a hospital without any identification.”   

    Rabbi Rosenberg also has to ensure that people who are desperately trying to find their loved ones in the rubble do not do so themselves.

   “Some people are very emotional and need to be held back from the building,” he said. “It is difficult for the police department to deal with it.”

     Firefighters, emergency crews, and search dogs continue to tunnel through the rubble with sound sensors this afternoon, as they continue to search for 99 people who remain missing. One person has been reported dead, but officials say they expect the death toll to rise.

     Fifty-five apartments of the 136-unit building, which is home to many Orthodox Jews, were destroyed, said Chief Raide Jadallah, the fire chief of operations of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

     Not only are fire and rescue workers still working to evacuate the building, they have also evacuated the buildings next to it for safety, Rabbi Rosenberg said.

   “Their power has been cut off, and we have now have hundred and hundreds of people without homes,” said Rabbi Rosenberg, who said that some people are staying in hotels, and he hopes to soon restore the power to the neighboring buildings.

   Many other survivors are staying a Family and Victims Advocate Community Center at 9301 Collins Ave., where the police and fire departments and search and rescue are doing briefings and updates.

   “Families can come there to get any information on their loved ones who are missing,” said Rabbi Rosenberg, who lives a few city blocks from where the building collapsed.

     While this morning, some witnesses blamed the building’s collapse on a heavy crane and other heavy equipment that was stored on the building’s roof during construction, many witnesses proposed many hypotheses.

     For instance, Shimon Wdowinski, who is a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University and who conducted a study on the building, claimed that the building, which was built in 1981, had been unstable and slowly sinking into the ground for years.

     “We saw this building had some kind of unusual movement,” Wdownski said.  

      “I have heard a lot of theories,” said Rabbi Rosenberg, but from the beach side, it looked like someone pulled out the sand from underneath the building: that is how fast it went down: it was seven or eight seconds.”