The mother of a woman missing in the Miami condo tower blasted Governor Ron DeSantis, saying Miami condo rescue efforts are not moving fas...
The mother of a woman missing in the Miami condo tower blasted Governor Ron DeSantis, saying Miami condo rescue efforts are not moving fast enough as officials raised the death toll to five and said 156 people remain missing after it emerged that the building's inspector was on roof hours before collapse.
After three days of search efforts officials said on Saturday evening that rescue workers have discovered a body and human remains, raising the confirmed death toll to five people.
Three of the deceased have been identified and authorities have notified their families, but aren't releasing their identities.
Officials have asked family members to submit DNA samples to help identify the human remains that they find. There are live DNA testing facilities on site to process identities.
As of Saturday evening, 156 people remain missing and 130 people have been accounted for.
Meanwhile, as search efforts continued a video posted online shows a woman, who was not identified, making an emotional plea to DeSantis to do more at a meeting between officials and relatives at a 'family reunification center' set up at a hotel close to the scene of the tragedy.
The woman slammed the current rescue mission saying it is 'not enough' and questioned how 'nobody has emerged dead or alive' from the wreckage of the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Miami Beach, more than 60 hours after the collapse.
She accused the Florida governor of keeping up appearances saying he is 'going to take a nice picture' while breaking 'promises' about the ongoing efforts to find those still unaccounted for.
'It's impossible that in four days nobody has emerged dead or alive,' she said during the tense meeting between officials and families desperately waiting for any news about their loved ones.
Workers search in the rubble at the Champlain Towers South Condo Saturday morning as hopes fade of finding people alive
Emergency crews search the debris for signs of life Saturday. No survivors or victims have been found from the collapse site in close to two days, since the bodies of three victims were pulled from the wreckage overnight Thursday
'It's not enough. Imagine if your children were in there. You're going to leave here and you're going to take a nice picture, and I know you're doing everything you can but it's not enough.'
Officials were able to pull two additional bodies from the rubble two days after the bodies of three victims were pulled from the wreckage overnight Thursday.
Police have identified the families of three of the victims and are not releasing the names of the deceased at this time.
On Saturday, officials said that rescue efforts were stalled by a fire in the rubble that was spreading and releasing smoke, but that first responders were continuing their search for survivors.
While the search continues, questions also continue to mount over the cause of the collapse and whether it could have been avoided.
A building official has said he was on the roof of the condo tower just 14 hours before it collapsed and saw 'no inordinate amount of equipment or materials' that would cause the fall, amid speculation that recent roof repairs may have been a contributing factor.
However, the 12-story condo tower had been flagged for 'major structural damage' to the pool deck area and underground parking garage in a damning report almost three years before it collapsed, it has been revealed.
The mother of a woman missing in the Miami condo tower has blasted Governor Ron DeSantis and the rescue efforts for not moving fast enough and claimed Israeli specialists have not been allowed to assist in the search for the 156 people still missing in the rubble more than 60 hours on from the tragedy
The woman accused the Florida governor of keeping up appearances saying he is 'going to take a nice picture' while breaking 'promises' about the ongoing efforts to find those still unaccounted for. Governor DeSantis deflected the issue onto the rescue crews on the ground: 'It's an operational decision'
This comes as:
- Officials confirmed on Saturday that the death toll has risen to five people and 156 people remain missing
- The search and rescue mission has been hampered by raging fires burning beneath the surface of the rubble
- Firefighters cannot locate the source of the fire and were forced to temporarily stop the search to build a trench in the rubble, from which they could safely search from
- Miami-Dade Mayor Cava announced she was introducing an audit of all buildings aged 40 or over in the county to be completed within the next 30 days
- Surfside Mayor called for the evacuation of residents living in the block's sister building one block away
- An alarming 2018 report shows a consultant engineer warned about 'structural damage' to pool area and underground parking garage three years before the collapse
- 156 people are still unaccounted for including the first cousin of the former president of Chile and the president of Paraguay's sister-in-law
- Five people are confirmed dead with the first victim identified as Stacie Fang, the mom of a boy, 15, rescued from the rubble Thursday
- Sources told DailyMail.com many people in the building were tourists from Latin America renting apartments while they traveled to the US to get COVID-19 vaccines
With hope fading for the 156 people still unaccounted for, footage of the emotional meeting with the families of those missing showed the desperate mother begging with officials to get rid of 'red tape' to speed up the search as she said her daughter was in 'perfect health' so could still be alive beneath the debris.
'My daughter is 26 years old, in perfect health,' she said as her voice cracked.
'She could make it out of there... days have gone by.'
She added: 'It's not enough. I'm not an engineer, I'm not a fire marshal, I don't know the way to do this.
'I'm a mother, I don't know the best way to go about this... but it's not enough.'
The woman claimed that fire and rescue teams from Israel were being stopped from assisting in the mission by the state and local officials.
'Governor, fire chief, mayor I was promised yesterday and everybody else was promised that the Israelis would be allowed in and that they are here,' she said.
'I have since been informed they are not here and they are not working. You promised us... Time has gone by and promises are not being kept.'
The mother directed her comments at DeSantis saying the matter was under his control.
'Governor, it's in your control as I understand. You promised us and they are not here,' she said.
'I want an answer, not a Band-Aid, not a Tylenol, not someone to massage my pain.'
DeSantis remained silent for much of the exchange leaving Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah to respond to the concerns.
Jadallah explained that US rescue teams are just as qualified as Israeli teams and that it is not a matter of resource - but the precarious nature of the collapse site, meaning only a certain number of people can be on the debris at any given time.
'We are just as qualified as the Israel teams. We have an additional thousand just as qualified.
'It doesn't matter if they're from Switzerland, from America, from Israel. I assure you we're all certified the same way and we all want to get the individuals that are under the debris out.
'But I can assure you that the number of personnel who can physically fit on this pile can only be a specific number.
'We can't put a thousand people on this pile.'
The woman directed her questions at DeSantis again.
'You gave us a promise and you're not fulfiling it,' she said. 'Red tape is not important when my daughter is dying.'
When the governor finally piped up, he deflected the issue back onto the operational crews on the ground who are working round the clock to try to find survivors.
'The state is not preventing that at all. They're welcome to come. It's an operational decision,' he said.
'If the Israeli team, if they can use that, they have 100 percent support from the state to do so.'
Construction equipment is used to remove rubble at the site of a collapsed building in Surfside, Florida, Saturday
A makeshift memorial is set up near the collapse site as 156 remain unaccounted for and four have been confirmed dead
Rescue teams are seen on the scene of the condo tower Saturday around the pool deck area which an expert warned was in need of repairs
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava also added that 'if they come we will deploy them.'
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has sent members of the Israel Defense Force's Home Front Command search-and-rescue team to Florida to help in the search for survivors.
Rivlin tweeted on Friday that he was praying for the victims of the tragedy.
'We hope for the recovery of the survivors and send heartfelt condolences to those who have lost family members,' Rivlin wrote on Twitter.
More than two dozen among the 156 unaccounted for are Jewish, according to Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, the acting consul general of Israel in Miami.
Officials said Saturday the search and rescue mission has been increasingly hampered by raging fires burning beneath the surface of the rubble, sending thick smoke into the air.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin tweeted on Friday that he was praying for the victims of the tragedy
Firefighters have been unable to locate the source of the fire and have taken to digging a trench in the rubble away from the flames that rescue teams can safely search for victims and survivors around.
With questions mounting over the cause of the disaster, Surfside building official Jim McGuinness revealed Friday in an emergency town meeting he had inspected the roof just 14 hours before the building crumbled.
McGuinness was inspecting work of replacing roof anchors, which are where window cleaners attach their equipment, reported the Palm Beach Post.
He insisted there 'was no inordinate amount of equipment or materials or anything on that roof that caught my building official’s eye that would make it alarming as to this place collapsing.
Officials released an October 2018 report overnight Friday on the Surfside, Florida town website which revealed a consultant engineer warned back then that the Champlain Towers South building was in need of numerous repairs around the base of the structure 'in a timely fashion.'
The structural field survey report specifically raised concerns about the pool deck area, in which the waterproofing was failing, and the underground parking garage which was riddled with 'abundant' cracking.
Despite the apparent urgency of some of the recommendations, an attorney for the resident-led condo association told the New York Times this week that repairs were only about to begin - more than two and a half years after the inspection.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has vowed to 'get to the bottom of what happened' while local officials called for the evacuation of residents living in the block's sister building.
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