Building collapse in Miami-Dade: Four of the five victims killed in a building collapse in Florida have been identified. 156 people remain missing

“Today our search and rescue teams found another body in the rubble,” said Levine Cava. “And our search also found some human remains.”

The process of identifying the victims is difficult, the mayor said, and officials will rely on DNA testing, “and that’s why we have already collected DNA samples from family members,” she said.

The victims were identified as Antonio Lozano, 83, Gladys Lozano, 79 and Manuel LaFont, 54, said Miami-Dade police in a press release on Saturday evening.

Stacie Fang, 54, was previously identified, CNN reported.

Antonio and Gladys Lozano were both rescued from Apartment 903, with Antonio rescued on June 24 and Gladys on June 25, the press release said.

A fifth victim has not yet been identified.

There are now 130 people tracked and 156 not tracked, she said. The officials have not determined a cause for the collapse.

About 55 of the 136 units in the building several miles north of Miami Beach collapsed around 1:30 a.m. Thursday, leaving huge piles of debris on the floor and materials dangling from the remains of the structure, officials said.

“Our top priority continues to be search and rescue and saving all the lives we can,” added the mayor.

The crews are continuing an “aggressive search and rescue strategy” in the rubble of Champlain Towers South, Miami-Dade fire chief Alan Cominsky said during the press conference.

Firefighters were able to contain the fire and minimize the smoke that hampered search and rescue operations, Cominsky said.

“We are currently searching the entire debris field, we have divided it into several sections and we are actively using our search and rescue techniques.”

Ingenieur had raised concerns about structural damage

Almost three years before the fatal partial collapse on Thursday, an engineer documented concerns about structural damage to the concrete slab under the pool deck and “cracking and chipping” in the parking garage.

An October 2018 structural field survey report was incorporated into a series of public documents released overnight in the town of Surfside Website. The New York Times was the first to cover the field research report.

The structural field survey found that the waterproofing under the pool deck and driveway failed, causing “major structural damage”.

“The sealing below the pool deck and the driveway as well as the entire planter sealing have exceeded their useful life and must therefore be completely removed and replaced,” the report says.

“The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete construction slab underneath these areas. If the waterproofing is not replaced in the near future, the extent of concrete degradation will expand exponentially.”

According to the report, the waterproofing was installed on a flat structure rather than a sloping concrete slab that allowed the water to drain. This resulted in water sitting on the waterproofing until it evaporated, which the report called a “fatal flaw”.

The report further noted that “replacing the existing waterproofing on the decks will be extremely expensive … be disruptive and will significantly disrupt the residents of this condo building.”

The report, whose aim was to “understand and document the extent of the structural problems”, details signs of “distress / fatigue” in the parking garage.

“Numerous cracks and flakes of varying degrees have been observed on the concrete supports, beams and walls. … Although some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete damage needs to be repaired in a timely manner.”

Chipping is a term used to describe areas of concrete that have cracked or peeled off.

The 2018 report also found that “many … previous garage concrete repairs” had “failed”.

The report contained no evidence that the structure was in danger of collapsing. It was completed by Frank Morabito from Morabito Consultants.

Consulting firm says it was discontinued in 2020

In a statement on Saturday, Morabito Consultants said the company produced a report in 2018 detailing “significant cracks and fractures in the concrete” and providing “an estimate of the likely cost of making the extensive and necessary repairs”.

The homeowners association again commissioned the company in June 2020 to “draw up a 40-year plan for building repair and restoration with detailed specifications for carrying out the necessary repair and restoration work,” the statement said.

Roof repairs were in progress at the time of the collapse, but concrete refurbishment has not yet started, the company said, adding that it “only” provides engineering consulting services, not construction-related services.

“We are deeply concerned about this building collapse and are working closely with investigating authorities to understand why the structure failed,” it said.

“Nothing of the sort was foreseeable,” says the housing association’s lawyer

Abieyuwa Aghayere, professor of civil engineering at Drexel University who reviewed the report, said the results were alarming and should have encouraged further verification of the building’s integrity.

A lawyer for the building’s homeowners association, Kenneth Director, previously warned against premature speculation. The building, he told CNN on Friday, had undergone a series of inspections “over the past few months” as part of its 40-year milestone security certification process.

“Something like that was unpredictable,” said the director. “At least it wasn’t seen by the engineers looking at the building from a static perspective.”

CNN reached out to the director on Saturday for comment.

Surfside Mayor: Evacuate the nearby tower

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett on Saturday recommended that residents of the nearby North Tower evacuate “out of caution”.

“I don’t think people have to live with the possibility or the thought that their” building will collapse, Burkett told CNN.

Burkett said he hadn’t seen the 2018 report and it was still “unclear what steps the building took to fix … cracks” mentioned in the document.

At an emergency meeting on Friday evening, the mayor and the city commission discussed the evacuation of the north tower – which Burkett described in the design as “exactly the same property” as the collapsed tower – and the recruitment of an engineer to investigate.

On Saturday morning, CNN asked Levine Cava, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, about the report.

“We need all of this information, we need all of this evidence, and we’re going to get to the bottom of what happened in that particular building,” she said.

The mayor later told reporters, “We knew nothing about this report.”

Levine Cava said Miami-Dade is conducting an audit of all buildings in the county after 40 years and beyond.

“We want to make sure every building has completed its recertification process,” she said.

The collapsed building was going through this recertification process, and all the board knew was what the engineer’s certification report was in terms of repair work, she said.

Roof repairs permit issued the day before the collapse

Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer for the Champlain Towers housing association, said board members had no information that foresaw Thursday’s disaster.

“Typical things an engineer looks for on a certification report in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, the two counties that require this type of certification, is a roof, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and building check Envelope, “Berger told CNN.

“But there was certainly nothing dangerous in this report, anything that would have turned out to be life-threatening.”

The city of Surfside issued a permit for roof repairs on the Champlain Towers South building the day before the collapse, according to documents released on Friday.

On Wednesday, a South Florida concrete company was given permission to “install roof safety anchors and perform stucco repairs”. The work included the expansion of the “existing roof to the concrete ceiling” and its renewal, according to the permit. The next day the building collapsed.

The company that is supposed to carry out the work, Concrete Protection and Restoration LLC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Another document produced as part of the Civil Engineer’s 2018 Report also found that small parts of the building “showed distress”.

The report produced by Morabito for the building’s condominium company found that about 2% of the exterior columns had concrete spalling and about 5% of the floor slabs of the balcony structure had hairline cracks.

A class action lawsuit filed on Thursday alleges the collapsed condominium association is responsible for “failures to secure and secure” condominium lives and property.

The director replied on behalf of the association: “I don’t know what caused this building to collapse … The engineers don’t know for sure what caused this building to collapse.”

Families miss loved ones

While concerned family members wait for news – and the search continues – officials remain hopeful. A boy lying under a mattress and bed frame was pulled alive from the rubble Thursday.

“I have hope because our first responders tell me they have hope,” Levine Cava told CNN.

A makeshift memorial for the missing with photos, candles and flowers was erected along a fence near the collapse site.

Among the missing are Gil Guerra and his wife Betty, who lived on the ninth floor.

“We’re doing our best to remain hopeful,” said Michelle Guerra of her father and stepmother. “They would want that.”

Also missing were Vishal Patel, his wife Bhavna Patel, their one-year-old daughter Aishani Patel and their niece Sarina Patel, told CNN, adding that Bhavna Patel was four months pregnant.

Sarina Patel told CNN on Friday that the last time she spoke to her family was on June 20, to let them know that she had booked a visiting flight. They were home at the time of the collapse, said Sarina Patel.

“We tried to call her countless times and there just weren’t any answers,” she said.

CNN’s Rosa Flores reported from Surfside; Contributors to this report are Steve Almasy, Curt Devine, Rebekah Riess, Amanda Watts, Sara Weisfeldt, Theresa Waldrop, Ana Zuniga, Melissa Alonso, Jamiel Lynch, Camille Furst, Abel Alvarado, Kristen Holmes, Valentina Moreira, Gerardo Lemos and Radina Gigova.

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