Florida officials pledge multiple probes into condo collapse – KIRO 7 News Seattle

SURFSIDE, Florida – (AP) – Officials elected Tuesday promised to conduct multiple investigations into the collapse of an oceanfront condominium tower in Florida and vowed to convene a grand jury and look “at every possible angle” to prevent other buildings from falling such experiences result in a catastrophic failure.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she and her staff will meet with engineering, construction and geology experts, among others, to review building safety issues and develop recommendations “to ensure that a tragedy like this is prevented will never happen again ”.

Prosecutor Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she would conduct a grand jury investigation to examine factors and decisions that led to the collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside on Thursday. Another victim was recovered Tuesday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 12, with 149 people missing.

Even as officials looked to the future to determine the cause of the collapse, they resolutely vowed to continue efforts to find survivors.

On the sixth day of a careful search, Governor Ron DeSantis created a well-known military commitment not to leave anyone on the battlefield and promised to do the same for the people still missing in the rubble.

“The way I see it as an old Navy guy, if you’re missing in the military until you’re found, you’re missing. We’re not stopping the search, ”DeSantis said at a press conference.

“I think that’s what happens. These first responders are breaking their backs trying to find everyone they can. I think they will continue to do that. They were very selfless. You put yourself in danger of doing it. “.”

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett cited the case of a woman found alive 17 days after a textile factory collapsed in 2013, killing more than 1,000 people in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

“Nobody gives up hope here. … We strive to get everyone out of this heap of rubble, “said Burkett.

Also on Tuesday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden would travel to Surfside on Thursday.

Martin Langesfeld, whose sister, the 26-year-old Nicole Langesfeld, was missing in the collapse, expressed the hope that there would still be survivors.

“We are not alone in this. There is hope. I really believe miracles happen. Such things have happened all over the world, “he said during a vigil on Monday evening on the beach near the collapsed building.

The collapse has put the safety of older skyscrapers across South Florida to the test. Cava ordered a 30-day audit to verify that buildings 40 years old or older are in compliance with a required re-certification of their structural integrity and that any issues raised by inspections are addressed.

On Tuesday, the mayor said construction inspections found four balconies in a Miami-Dade County building that “must be closed immediately for safety concerns.”

Previous South Florida grand juries have examined other major catastrophes, such as the collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in 2018, which killed six people. This investigation is ongoing.

Criminal charges are possible in such matters, such as the charges of third degree murder and manslaughter in the 1996 crash of ValuJet Flight 592, which killed 110 people in the Everglades.

The work on site was deliberate and treasonous. Overnight, debris fell from the shattered edge of the still standing part of the building onto the search area. That forced rescuers to mark a line and focus their efforts on parts of the heap of rubble that are farther from the structure, Burkett told Miami TV broadcaster WSVN.

Kevin Guthrie of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said his agency had requested an additional search team. He said state officials wanted to replace some of their teams so they could be available during severe weather in the coming days.

Several members of an Israeli rescue team worked on Tuesday, some on their hands and knees, over a small section of the rubble, digging with shovels, picks and saws. They removed debris in buckets that were thrown into a metal container that was regularly lifted by a crane. The crane then delivered an empty container.

In the late afternoon the rescue workers rang a second time during the day’s work and signaled an approaching thunderstorm with lightning. Workers temporarily evacuated.

Authorities said it was still a search and rescue operation, but no one has been found alive for hours after the collapse on Thursday.

The building’s pancake-like collapse left layer upon layer of intertwined rubble, frustrating efforts to reach anyone who might have survived in a pocket.

The authorities often meet with families to explain their activities and answer questions. They discussed how to make DNA matches to identify the dead, how to contact the next of kin and how to search the hill, the mayor said.

Knowing this, Cava said, families come to their own conclusions.

“Some are more hopeful, others less hopeful because we don’t have definitive answers. We provide you with the facts. We’ll bring them to the construction site, ”she said. “You saw the operation. You now understand how it works and are preparing for news one way or another. “

Rachel Spiegel, whose 66-year-old mother Judy Spiegel is missing, said Tuesday she was hoping for a miracle but also wrote about looking beyond the tragedy.

“Our mother Judy was the glue that held our family together. All family memories, photos, clothes and heirlooms that our father and mother had collected over the past 65 years were lost in seconds, ”wrote Spiegel in a statement about the establishment of a charity fund on behalf of her mother. “While we continue to search for the meaning of this catastrophe, we must also look to the future and rebuild.”

In an SMS exchange with The Associated Press, she added, “Please keep praying for a miracle.”

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Associate press writers Kelli Kennedy in Miami, Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee, Florida, and Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida contributed to this report.

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