Florida Disaster Has Been Excruciating to Watch

The thought of what happened to the 156 missing people was just unbearable.";td_smart_list_h";h1

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David Suissa

June 28, 2021

Search and Rescue teams look for possible survivors in the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building on June 27, 2021 in Surfside, Florida. (Photo by Giorgio Viera / AFP) (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)

Ever since I heard the horrific news last Thursday morning of the partial collapse of a residential building in Surfside, Florida, I had only one thought: Can they rescue any survivors from the rubble?

I assumed every minute, every second, would count. If anyone was still alive under the crushing debris, they must have been barely alive, barely breathing.

The numbers gave me the chills: Initially, it was one dead and over 100 unaccounted for. As the days wore on, the dead toll increased. By Sunday night, it was 9 dead with 156 still missing. In the 96 hours since the collapse, no one was rescued alive. The thought of what happened to the 156 missing people was just unbearable.

It must have been unbearable to others, too, like Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett, who spoke of “progress.”

“There is progress being made,” Burkett told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “We’ve got waves of search-and-rescue teams that are flowing over the site, going in and going out. So it’s moving along.”

No one seemed willing to bring up the only progress that really mattered— the prospect of rescuing lives.

Meanwhile, a team of Israeli search-and-rescue specialists, led by Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, showed up on Sunday to support rescue efforts.

“This is one of the best, if not the best and most experienced… Israeli rescue team,” Shai said. “They have been all over the world in many similar situations.”

Again, it all sounded so hopeful and action-oriented. But as proud as I was that an Israeli team showed up on the scene, there was still one depressing detail no one could bear to bring up: What are the chances that four days after the collapse, anyone would be alive?

“We don’t have a resource problem,” Mayor Burkett said. “We have a luck problem. We need to get more lucky right now.”

It wasn’t luck I thought about when I first heard the news. My naive mind thought only of the possibility of rescuing anyone trapped under the rubble. I imagined a fleet of army-type helicopters arriving immediately to lift up and remove slabs and slabs of concrete. I imagined a circle of cranes doing the same thing, and a crew of experts as well, cutting through the debris and doing whatever had to be done in those first few hours to locate any signs of life.

It wasn’t luck I thought about when I first heard the news. My naive mind thought only of the possibility of rescuing anyone trapped under the rubble.

I guess that’s the luxury of being a columnist rather than an engineer or rescue specialist: I can imagine and dream. I can disregard any inconvenient obstacles, the dangerous conditions, the fires, the rain, and everything else that delayed the rescue mission.

I certainly don’t want to sound unappreciative of the emergency crews that have been doing their best around the clock. I just feel bad for them, because my gut tells me if there were any survivors, they are long gone.

Realistic or not, practical or not, I’m haunted by the thought that maybe someone was still breathing down there on Thursday morning. As I write this on Sunday night, that thought makes this disaster only more excruciating to watch.