President Joe Biden supports a federal investigation into the collapse of a condominium building in Surfside, the White House said Monday as officials in the beachside town announced that a 10th body has been recovered from the disaster site.
“He does believe there should be an investigation,” White Houses Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a briefing.
She said some of the federal resources the president has sent to South Florida — including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the FBI —would seek evidence for such an inquiry.
“Certainly, we want to play any constructive role we can play with federal resources in getting to the bottom of it and preventing it from happing in the future,” Psaki said.
There are no immediate plans for Biden to travel to the site, Psaki said, but he is being kept appraised of the operations at the disaster site.
“We always want to ensure that we’re not pulling from local resources. We don’t want to draw resources that are needed for the ongoing search and rescue operations and efforts.”
In Surfside, Miami Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced the new body count during a press briefing and added that officials now have accounted for 135 residents. Another 151 people have yet to be accounted for, she said.
“Our detectives are working in real time, right now, to audit this list. We’re receiving multiple calls still from family members about the same loved ones and the information is coming from various sources,” Cava said.
“I want to stress, as we have from the beginning, that these numbers are very fluid, and they will continue to change.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis, during the same briefing, said he’d met members of the national standards group, sometimes known as NIST, which has investigated disasters including the World Trade Center site in New York.
“This is going to be something that’s important, it is something that’s going to be very thorough, and it’s something that’s not going to happen in a day or two. This is going to take a long time,” the governor said.
In the meantime, the city of Surfside and Miami Dade County are investigating the collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South. And Sheriff Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez III acknowledged during the briefing that a homicide investigation is underway, and that officers are participating in testing DNA recovered from the site in hopes of identifying victims.
“I think those investigations may be able to provide us with some information maybe a little sooner than NIST, and I think that’s important, because if there’s things that need to be done at the state level we, obviously, would want to get information as soon as possible,” DeSantis said.
The governor added: “I think people in the state of Florida want to understand how could this happen and what could we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett promised to publicly release town records relating to the building. News organizations including the Miami Herald have reported that in 2018 an engineering survey found major problems in the structure.
“We directed our staff to go ahead and scan every shred of documentation that the town of Surfside has, which includes going to our archive storage sites. We’ve got boxes and we’re sending those boxes to printing-scanning company, and those documents will be available for your review,” Burkett told reporters.
Meanwhile, displaced residents are receiving cash assistance and other aid, including mental health counseling, at an emergency shelter, officials said.
Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, who serves as Florida’s fire marshal, said this is the largest search and rescue deployment yet undertaken outside of hurricane responses.
“The same number of men and women that are on the ground right now is the same as that was deployed to Hurricane Michael, which was a 12-county storm event,” Patronis said.
Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie stressed that state, local, and federal governments are working closely together. That includes a FEMA response team that Cava requested Sunday afternoon, he said.
Assistant Chief of Operations Raide Jadallah said searchers have brought in heavy equipment to remove large sections of concrete. That led to the discovery of the 10th body, he said.
He discounted “a misunderstanding” that officials should call off the search for survivors at any specific point.
“That’s far from the truth. In the end, there’s numerous variables and facts. It’s not based on opinions, it’s not based on time, it’s not based on a specific area you just happened to see on TV that went down,” Jadallah said.
“We have to consider all options. Then, and only then, we take that information and we make a collective decision,” he said.
Jadallah acknowledged concerns by family members that the process is taking too long but noted the difficulty and danger confronting the team. On Sunday, he said, one worker fell 25 feet down the mound.
“It’s a 12-story building. It’s going to take time,” he said.
Officials brief family members about details of the search, including the use of DNA evidence and protocols for notifying next of kin, Cava said. Additionally, family members gather at the site to view the work personally.
“They have seen first-hand what is being done, and they see that everything has been done that can be done. They recognize the full danger that first responders are exposing themselves to and what it has taken for them to get to this point,” Cava said.
“They are preparing themselves for news, one way or the other,” she said.
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from Daily Florida Press https://dailyfloridapress.com/biden-supports-federal-probe-of-surfside-condominium-collapse-mayor-vows-to-release-all-records/
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