Surfside Building Collapse Draws People Together

By Selena Stanley, Miami Times Staff Writer

Jun 29, 2021

Surfside residents awoke to a horrifying rumbling just after midnight last Thursday.

Reminiscent of an earthquake, the ground began to shake at Champlain Towers South and a deafening sound filled the air. Some have described it as being similar to thunder, while others recall it sounded like a hurricane raging outside. One thing they can agree on: After the rumbling stopped, the screaming started.

Debris and smoke filled the air, darkening the already black 1:30 a.m. sky. Confused, disoriented and scared, those inside the building weren’t aware of what was going on. They had no idea their lives would be changed forever on that fateful morning when a 12-story oceanfront condo building partially collapsed.

In what many officials are saying may be the biggest disaster in Florida history, a northeast, beach-facing portion of Champlain Towers South, located near Collins Avenue and 88th Street in Surfside, crumbled into a heap of rubble with many of its residents inside.

According to officials, 136 residents of the building have been accounted for, 149 people are missing or unaccounted for, and 12 have been confirmed dead as a result of the tragedy.

Surfside is an affluent, predominantly white community, many of whom are Jewish. Numerous residents also emigrated from Latin America. As a result, the victims and the missing fit these demographics, but people of every race and religion have come to help. Many of the first responders and others who quickly mobilized to assist are Black.

Carla Spalding, a nurse who lives in Hallandale Beach, Fla., volunteered to help treat survivors at the site of the collapse.

(Courtesy of Carla Spalding)

“I came down to help as soon as I saw it on the news,” said Carla Spalding, a registered nurse from Hallandale Beach.

Spalding awoke early Thursday morning to a flood of social media and news notifications on her phone. After learning of the building collapse, she said she couldn’t just sit idly by, knowing there was something she could do.

She hopped in her car, made the 45-minute drive to Surfside and offered her services as a nurse to those on the scene. Rescuers welcomed the assistance, allowing her to treat mild injuries of residents who had escaped.

Emotions were high at the family reunification center, as people waited for news of their missing loved ones. Black first responders and law enforcement officers continued to provide support.

(Selena Stanley for The Miami Times)

Later in the day, Spalding provided support to loved ones of the missing at a makeshift family reunification center. Relatives gathered at a nearby hotel to wait for news and hopefully be reunited with rescued loved ones. She described the environment as emotionally charged, with people nervous to hear if their relatives had been found, rescued or recovered from the wreckage.

People lie on cots as they wait for news at a family reunification center, after a wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed last Thursday in Surfside, Fla.

(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

“You know, it’s difficult,” she said. “For the majority of them, I think it was the fear of the unknown, anxiety and questioning if their loved ones were alive.”

A woman of Jamaican descent, Spalding said her oath as a nurse is to serve others, no matter their race, background or culture. However, surpassing that duty is her belief that helping others is just the right thing to do.

“Tragedy always brings us together,” she said. “Sometimes that’s what has to happen before we realize we’re all the same. Right now, these victims have nothing. They need support.”

As families grapple with the fact that their missing loved ones won’t be found alive, survivors and other residents of the building reflect on what they’ve lost.

“Everything is gone,” said Erick Demaura, a resident of the building. “My whole life, my documents, my passport, my green card, money … ”

Demaura, originally from Brazil, had lived in Champlain Towers South on the 10th floor for the past three years. The night before the collapse, he went to his girlfriend’s house nearby to watch a soccer game. When the game finished and he was ready to go home, his girlfriend asked him to stay the night and spend time with her.

“It’s not something that I usually do during the week,” he said, “but for some reason, I decided to stay.”

His girlfriend’s suggestion kept him away from the disaster.

“To be very honest with you right now, I’m not in touch with my emotions,” he said. “I’m blessed that I’m alive, but I can’t imagine what these people are feeling here looking for their families.”

Demaura escaped the tragedy, but must now rebuild his life.

Stories like his have prompted members of the community to donate items to the reunification center, food, clothes, phone chargers and hygienic items among them.

Karl Morisset, another good Samaritan, donated 50 cases of water bottles to those at the family reunification site for victims and relatives of the tragedy.

(Selena Stanley for The Miami Times)

One man, Karl Morisset, donated close to 50 packages of water bottles.

“It's just how I saw I could help,” he said.

When asked about serving a community that’s vastly different from his own, Morisset said that thought hadn’t crossed his mind.

“Everybody's a person, you know, and everybody needs help sometimes,” he said. “One day that could be me, and I would hope that somebody would come out.”

Other Black members of the community provided aid in a spiritual way.

Erica Sommers, a member of Calvary Chapel Miami Beach, provided spiritual support to victims along with her church’s “God Squad.”

(Courtesy of Erica Sommers)

Erica Sommer, a member of Calvary Chapel Miami Beach, led a group called the “God Squad” in prayer at the building site Friday.

“As soon as we saw this on the news, we knew this community needed prayer,” she said in an interview with The Miami Times.

The God Squad usually goes out to different locations every week, offering to pray for the people that approach them. Sommer said that prayer, and the community she found within her church, helped her get through some very dark times in her life. Now, she feels it’s necessary to pay it forward.

“It doesn’t matter what race, culture or background you have, we all suffer and we all need prayer,” she said. “God uses my suffering to be able to support others. That’s why I’m out here. And he’s going to use this suffering to encourage other people in another season.”

Members of Calvary Chapel, whose pastor is the lead chaplain for the Miami Beach Police Department, also volunteered to do laundry for the firefighters and first responders on the scene, who are working in shifts around the clock.

As families go into the seventh day – waiting, hoping and praying that their loved ones will be found – members of communities throughout Miami-Dade continue to mobilize. Several GoFundMe campaigns have been started to raise money for the victims. Officials also issued a call to action for local businesses that would like to offer their goods or services during this time. You can visit FloridaDisaster.biz for more information.

Recovering from this tragedy won’t be easy, but the victims won’t have to do it alone.

Firefighters wait near the site of a partial building collapse, Thursday, June 24, 2021, in Surfside, Fla.

(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Search and rescue began almost immediately after the collapse and is still underway. For the past 150 hours, teams of first responders have worked in shifts to dig through rubble and look for signs of life. Firefighters have also been on the scene putting out various fires that have broken out in the building’s rubble.

Local and state officials are regularly updating the public and families of the missing people. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said that while much remains unanswered, officials' main concern is rescuing possible survivors.

“We are going to get to the bottom of what happened here,” she said in a news conference Monday. “But right now, our top priority is search and rescue, and finding people.”

So far, sonar technology has been able to detect sounds below the mound of debris. This could be a positive sign of life or pieces of debris rubbing against each other. Radar technology that can “see” through concrete has also detected large enough spaces inside the mound where a person could survive. Levine Cava said she remains optimistic.

“As you can see, we have a truly unprecedented mobilization effort underway, with the full resources of our local, state and federal government on hand for days already, and people coming in from around the state and around the world to assist us,” she said.

President Joe Biden will visit the site on Thursday.

Rescue efforts include help from FEMA personnel, teams from Israel and Mexico, and first responders from other Florida counties. This is the largest deployment of task force resources in Florida’s history for a disaster that's not a hurricane, according to the state fire marshal.

Built in 1981, Champlain Towers South had 136 units, 55 of which collapsed. A 2018 report by a local engineer concluded that the complex had “major structural damage" on the pool deck, but a lengthy investigation will ultimately determine the cause. The building was undergoing extensive renovations to comply with an upcoming required 40-year building recertification with Miami-Dade County to guarantee its structural safety.

Some residents who say they were uninformed of the building's condition filed a $5 million class-action lawsuit against the condo association less than 24 hours after the disaster.

The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.