Consider This from NPR - What We've Learned In The First 100 Hours Since The Surfside Condo Collapse

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

Susana Alvarez, a survivor of the condo collapse in Surfside, Florida, explained to NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro on Weekend Edition Sunday that residents were told in a late 2018 meeting that the building was safe — despite evidence it wasn't. NPR confirmed Alvarez's account. An engineering report issued five weeks before that meeting warned of "major structural damage" to the building that would require "extremely expensive" repairs. Jenny Staletovich with member station WLRN reports on efforts by rescuers, which include Miami's own world-renowned search and rescue team. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Around 1.30 in the morning on Thursday, 62-year-old Susanna Alvarez was lying in bed in her apartment. And I heard a tremor. I really didn't think anything of it. I thought, oh, tomorrow in the news we're going to hear about, you know, tremors in Florida. But it wasn't even a minute that went by when it was, my bed started to shake. Susanna jumped out of bed. Her apartment, a condo, was on the 10th floor, right across from the elevators. She grabbed her phone, opened her front door. And there were no elevators.

Just open holes. And it was just a lot, what looked like smoke, which must have been dust. And so I went around the corner, and that's when I saw that the building was missing. There was nothing there, and people were screaming. Susanna ran down the hall. She left her cat behind. There were just a few other apartments left standing on her floor. And I banged on their doors, and they came out, out and then I said, we got to get out of here. And I ran and I ran and we went down the stairs and the stairs were all full of rubble. And once they made it outside, Susanna remembers in the light of the moon, she could see the massive pile of rubble where 12

stories of her condo building used to be. And when we got outside again, all I could hear were the people screaming. They were screaming, help, help, someone help us. They were screaming. There were people alive in there. Consider this. Monday morning marked 100 hours since the Surfside condo collapse. It may be the worst disaster of its kind in the U.S. in at least 40 years. And NPR recently learned it comes three years after residents were told the building was safe, despite evidence it wasn't. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Monday, June 28th. organized and unwilling to budge. I'm Chris Haxel. I'm Lisa Hagen. Check out No Compromise

wherever you get your podcasts. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Nature Valley Granola Bars, who believes the best energy comes from nature. Whether you want to relieve stress or re-energize after a long day, Nature Valley invites you to take in the outdoors, starting with this nature break. re-energize after a long day, Nature Valley invites you to take in the outdoors, starting with this nature break. For more, visit TakeInTheOutdoors.com. It's Consider This from NPR. The collapse in Surfside was so catastrophic, one disaster management expert told NPR it may be the worst accident of its kind in 40 years. I'm really afraid this will be probably the largest non-intentional collapse of a building.

Robert Jensen dealt with the aftermath of 9-11, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Grenfell Tower fire in the U.K., and he compared the Surfside collapse to another accidental collapse. The last big non-intentional collapse was Kansas City in 1981. Tonight, remarkable heroism in a disaster in Kansas City. In July of 1981, two walkways suspended over the lobby of a Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City collapsed during a dance party, killing 114 people. The condo collapse in Surfside, Florida, may be worse. More than 150 people are still unaccounted for. That's as of when we're recording this on Monday afternoon. Jensen told NPR the process of search and rescue in a densely collapsed building

is slow and precarious. It's not a question of do you have enough people? Too many people don't help because you can't have jackhammers and heavy equipment if you're trying to use microphones to listen for sound. Every action creates a reaction for moving pile or rubble pieces. So it's slow, it's painstaking. And at a certain point, they'll switch from a rescue to a recovery. No one has been rescued from the rubble since the early hours of the collapse on Thursday. Ten people are confirmed dead. In the meantime, Janssen says investigators will begin their work on paper

and will soon transition to an even longer process of extracting key parts of the building for analysis in order to determine what exactly caused it to collapse. The whole investigation? It could take years. We have to look at the concrete. We have to look at the steel, the rebar. We want to look at how the rebar's tied together. All the pieces the investigators will look at. And then you'll pull some of that out and it will go to, or should go to, a secure facility that's protected. So you can go through it and then do proper analysis on the material. At some point after the rescue and recovery process, what remains of the building will have to be demolished, which means even though Susana Alvarez survived the collapse, her

home is lost. She told NPR host Lulu Garcia Navarro she's been staying in the area. I am near the building. I won't leave. I won't leave. And again, I'm staying in the area. I have friends in Surfside. Have you been back to the building? What did you see? Yes, I go every day. But I mean, I can't get into the building. I go as near as I can. And the building was covered with smoke. Smoke everywhere. It's just so emotional.

I just want my cat back. I mean, I know that sounds silly, but that's all I want, my cat back. It doesn't sound silly. Your cat's name was Mia, right? Yes. Yes. And I should have gone back for him.

But you know if you'd done that, you might have lost your life. I know that. You did the only thing you could. I was only thinking of myself. I was only thinking of getting out. Susanna Alvarez had lived in the building for years. She told NPR something newsworthy that we've since confirmed, that in November 2018, a town inspector met with residents of the building. We had a board meeting, and we sat there with the town of Surfside,

and the town of Surfside said to us that the building was not in bad shape. That the building was not in bad shape. That is what they said. Now, that's notable because five weeks before that meeting, an engineering firm had completed an assessment of the building and issued a report, which warned that the structural slab was deteriorating. Water wasn't draining off of it properly. And the report cautioned that failure to complete, quote,

extremely expensive repairs would, quote, cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially. Now, NPR obtained the minutes of that condo meeting, which confirmed Susanna's account. NPR could not reach the town inspector, who no longer works in that position, for comment. There has been some discussion about why this happened, and that is an issue for another day. On Monday, the mayor of Surfside, Charles Burkett, said the town was still focused on search and rescue. But he seemed to indicate he was aware of NPR's report about that 2018 condo meeting. There are a couple disturbing comments that I saw regarding minutes, board minutes at the Champlain South towers

with respect to some of our officials in town. But be that as it may, we will get to the bottom of it. Last comment I want to make is... Burkett, we should note, was not mayor at the time. He said over the weekend that the engineering report from 2018 was on file with the town, but he didn't think anyone had ever read it. Here's Susana Alvarez again. I want answers. Yes, I want answers. I want major answers. That was my home. The people that lived there were good, good people. They didn't deserve this.

A lawyer representing victims of the building collapse told NPR Monday that a lawsuit was filed against the building for structural issues in 2017. And that would be before the engineering report we just mentioned. That lawyer, Brad Sohn, said he's trying to learn more about who knew about that report and when. And in addition to the association, we are actively investigating. And when I say that, subpoenas are going out today to the engineering firm that wrote that report,

to a number of other entities as well, so that we can continue to discover what various actors knew and when they knew it. In the meantime, the search for survivors, as of Monday afternoon, is ongoing. Among the people doing that work, one of the very best search and rescue teams in the world, which happens to be based in Miami-Dade County. This elite squad has traveled the world in the wake of disasters, earthquakes in Haiti and Mexico City, building explosions in Sri Lanka and Puerto Rico, and the Twin Towers in Manhattan after 9-11. But now, as Jenny Seletovich of member station WLRN reports, the team finds itself working in its own backyard.

Within hours of the building collapse early Thursday, search and rescue workers were already tunneling through the rubble in a basement garage and doing the job they were trained to do. At press briefings, local officials like Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniela Levine-Cava, Assistant Fire Chief Ray Jediah, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio each praised the team. This work is being done at extreme risk to these individuals. It's the risk versus benefit. Every time we have that belief that there's hope, you know, with personnel that are trapped, we do risk versus benefit. Every time we have that belief that there's hope with personnel that are trapped, we do risk our lives. You never want this to happen anywhere,

but we are blessed in this community to have, literally, the best people in the world in urban search and rescue. Pete Gomez was a founding member of the original search and rescue team in the 1980s when firefighters in Miami and Fairfax County, Virginia, were asked by the State Department to create a team to aid in international rescues. They came down into South Florida and basically said, hey, are you interested in this? A city firefighter at the time who wanted to go beyond the usual role of fighting fires, said of course. Gomez would become an assistant fire chief and command Miami's search and rescue team.

Over the next two decades, the crew would be sent to Mexico City, El Salvador, Turkey, New Orleans, Houston, and Lower Manhattan. He says no matter the disaster, the work always starts out the same. Start little by little. And that's what's been happening in Surfside. Crews are working slowly and methodically underneath tons of unstable rubble. He says firefighters need to size up the scene and divide the labor. The engineers have to tell you what's safe and what's not. And if you get to an area that there could be a possible collapse, you have to shore that area.

You have to monitor the environment for poisonous gases. As search and rescue teams formed around the country, today there are 28 nationwide. And the bombings and building collapses and hurricanes began to add up. Gomez says technology improved. From making shoring out of wood, you know, in two-by-fours, to now you have these intricate components that you put together. You have pneumatic, you know, airbags and you got chisels that we never saw before. You got cutting machines and the jaws units and the spreaders that are so much lighter and stronger and they work faster. Gomez says having to search for their own neighbors may

take a toll on rescue workers in Surfside, but in the end, he says, the job is the same. It's tough watching it, but at the same time, it brings this overwhelming sense of pride knowing that the people that you trained with and you supported for so many years are out there at the front line and they're making a difference. And the mayor says it's been difficult to get them to take a break because they don't want to stop searching. Jenny Stiletovich with Member Station WLRN in Miami. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.