"Officials made the decision Wednesday to cease search and rescue operations, putting an end to the hopes of finding survivors beneath the rubble."
"No survivors have been pulled from the rubble since the day the building collapsed, when 37 people were taken out alive. One of those survivors later died at the hospital.
The official death toll increased to 54 on Wednesday after eight more bodies were recovered. The number of people unaccounted for dropped to 86, a figure that has remained fluid as investigators continue to verify the list of those missing."
My guess is those remaining in the rubble are crushed within the cement structure. Once the heavy machinery moves in and more bodies are uncovered, it will be very difficult (maybe impossible) to identify the remains.
Built 40 years ago to the standards of the time. It was the residents and association who avoided a special assessment over a hundred thousand per apartment. No or minimal maintenance after leaks and structural damage was evident.
korn, Miami Beach is sand, sand and more sand. The condo is 100 yards from the ocean. If you dig down 30 feet salt water comes up. All construction in that area requires pilings driven into the ground with a monolithic slab on top.
Elsa was a hurricane for a day and back down to a tropical storm with 70 mph winds moving at 29 mph. Expected to pass through the Florida Keys around Monday night.
Elsa going 28 miles per hour is a fast moving storm with sustained winds of 60 miles per hour is enough to dump heavy rains across the Caribbean this weekend.
The projected path remains the same skirting Haiti/Dominican Republic, crossing Cuba through the Florida Keys and up the western coast of Florida.
Update: The glass company called last week to say the glass arrived. They scheduled an appointment with me but called the next day to say it was a windshield for a different model and my order wasn't in yet.
A week passes and again we are on the schedule, however it's been raining on and off all week and the work is done outdoors. I offered my 10' x 10' canopy but the equipment that holds the glass in place needs unrestricted height to lower the windshield in place. No can do. They need a few hours without rain to replace the windshield and re-calibrate the sensors.
With a storm approaching, there is a good chance this will have to wait another week.
CBS12 update: Rescue teams recovered several more bodies, including those of two children, at the site of the condo collapse in Surfside on Wednesday, pushing the death toll to 18. The two children were four and 10 years old, according to Miami Dade-County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Their names have not been released.
sug, I'm certain there will be dozens of lawsuits. Class action from the surviving family members comes to mind.
Jim, the reason repairs were ignored will probably be revealed on one of the investigations.
Bohe, In a former life, I worked for a company who made architectural windows and doors. I'm pretty sure there are laws about panic strikes for fire exits.
nam, sadly, you are correct. Too often doing the right thing comes after loss of life.
12 dead, 149 missing. Search and rescue crews are working round the clock, hampered by rain. Footage today shows many on their hands and knees using 5-gallon buckets sifting through a mountain of rubble.
Everything built on Miami Beach has to be reinforced with steel reinforced cement pilings driven deep into the sand. It's part of the engineering design to be approved by county building inspectors.
I'm sure investigations will reveal the building had developed cracks that maintenance was ignoring. One story claimed pending lawsuit(s) about this so it should come as no surprise. Half of the building broke away and I would wager the entire structure must be demolished.
Don't know if the county inspectors knew about this and / or cited the building owner for violations.
Mercedes, from what I've read the building was built to standards of that period. It's withstood dozens of hurricanes. The failure was the ground it was on started sinking over the years and nothing was done about it.
Jim, I didn't read too deeply into the story. It was built with normal fabrication techniques for it's time. One report told by a relative of someone who lived there said 'things were so bad it seemed like it would collapse one day'
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