Search efforts at the Miami-Dade condominium building collapse site have been halted due to “structural concerns,” as President Joe Biden plans to visit the area.
Around 2 a.m. on Thursday, rescue efforts at Champlain Towers South stopped after authorities expressed worry about “standing structures” in the 30-foot-high pile of rubble, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a press conference. As of Wednesday, officials pulled six more bodies from the remnants of the complex, of which two were children, aged 10 and 4.
The recoveries bring the total deceased to 18 as 147 still remain unaccounted for a week after the structure fell last Thursday.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure the safety of our first responders is paramount and to continue our search-and-rescue operations as soon as it is safe to do so,” Cava said.
MIAMI CONDO BUILDING NEEDED $9 MILLION IN REPAIRS PRIOR TO COLLAPSE, EMAILS SHOW
The president and first lady Jill Biden landed in Miami around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday and were briefed by Cava, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and other local leaders. Later in the day, the president is set to meet with first responders and families of the victims.
DeSantis said resuming the search effort is a top priority.
“Obviously, we believe that continuing searching is something that’s very, very important,” the Republican governor added. “We’re gonna provide whatever resources they need to be able to allow the searches to continue.”
Authorities face a set of new challenges after Tropical Storm Elsa is set to make landfall in the Sunshine State early next week.
Here are the 5 am AST Thursday, July 1 Key Messages for Tropical Storm #Elsa. Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Martinique, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.https://t.co/6zNCsAYIAB pic.twitter.com/o5dA3bP3qV
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) July 1, 2021
Questions have been raised about the cause of the collapse after the city of Surfside released a trove of records suggesting the building, which was erected in the 1980s, needed extensive repairs. Champlain Towers South, a 12-story structure that contained 136 units, was quoted for approximately $630,000 in electrical repairs, $254,000 in structural costs, nearly $3.2 million in remediation of the building’s facade, and $3.8 million pertaining to repairs of the garage and pool deck, according to emails from Morabito Consultants in 2018.
The correspondence also pointed to failures in “concrete structural” slabs on the pool deck and said that a lack of action could have led to extensive “deterioration.”
“The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” the emails read.
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The new records follow the public release of a report from the same construction firm that suggested “major structural damage” existed on the property in October 2018. The “major structural damage” was in the concrete slabs below the pool deck, and there was “abundant” cracking in the columns, beams, and walls of the parking garage, which is under the 13-story building, Morabito’s report found.
An investigation into the cause of the collapse is continuing.
