Florida town official said building was safe despite warning

The 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside partially collapsed early on Thursday as residents slept, killing at least nine and leaving more than 150 people still missing.

Rescue crews are working around the clock, sifting through the rubble for signs of life even as hopes of finding more survivors grow dimmer by the hour.

The 2018 report prepared by an engineering firm for the condominium building found serious concrete deterioration in the underground parking garage, including exposed rebar, as well as major structural damage in the concrete slab beneath the pool deck.

The engineer, Frank Morabito, reported the deterioration would “expand exponentially” if it was not repaired in the near future.

But Ross Prieto, a Surfside inspector who had reviewed the report, met residents the following month and assured them the building was safe, according to minutes of the meeting first obtained by NPR.

Prieto is no longer employed by Surfside, according to NPR. Reuters was unable to reach him but he told the Miami Herald newspaper he did not remember getting the report.

The cause of the collapse remains under investigation.

Gregg Schlesinger, a lawyer and former general contractor who specializes in construction-failure cases, said it was clear the deficiencies identified in the 2018 report were the main cause of the disaster.

Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer who works with the condo association, said the issues outlined in the 2018 report were typical for older buildings in the area and did not alarm board members, all of whom lived in the tower with their families.

Morabito’s firm was also retained by the building in 2020 to prepare a 40-year building repair plan. Under Florida law, buildings must go through a recertification process after reaching 40 years of age.

Morabito Consultants said on Saturday that roof repairs were underway at the time of the collapse but concrete restoration had not yet started.

“We are deeply troubled by this building collapse and are working closely with the investigating authorities to understand why the structure failed,” the firm said.

Officials said on Sunday they still hoped survivors may be alive under the rubble, aided by air pockets in the debris, but they have not detected any signs of life.

Monday’s forecast included a chance of thunderstorms, which could hamper search efforts as they did late last week. But a smoldering fire beneath the debris that had hindered rescue crews had largely abated by Sunday, officials said.

Two large cranes and two backhoes on Sunday joined in the debris-removal efforts that had previously been conducted mostly by hand by teams also using rescue dogs, sonar, drones and infrared scanners.

The teams included experts sent by Israel and Mexico to assist in the search. An American flag atop one crane rippled in the stiff ocean breeze.

Some relatives of those missing have provided DNA samples to officials, and family members were permitted to pay a private visit to the site by special arrangement on Sunday, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said.

Police released the names of four victims who ranged in age from 54 to 83 – a couple married for 58 years, a volunteer Little League baseball coach and the mother of a 15-year-old boy who was pulled alive from the rubble shortly after the collapse.

Among those who have been identified were Luis Andres Bermudez, 26, and his mother Anna Ortiz, 46, whose bodies were recovered on Saturday. In a letter he shared on Facebook, Bermudez’s father wrote that his son was “My Angel My everything.”

“I LOVE you and love you forever,” Luis Didi Bermudez wrote. “You are and will be the best in my life.”

Photographs of the missing were posted on a nearby fence, along with flowers and messages. “The Lord is My Refuge” read one handmade sign. “Surfside God is with you” said another.

Given the scores of those still missing, the disaster may end up one of the deadliest non-deliberate structural failures in U.S. history.

Ninety-eight people perished when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., gave way from the weight of snow during a silent movie screening in January 1922. Two interior walkways collapsed into the lobby of the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, during a dance party in July 1981, killing 114.

REUTERS