3 years ago
299
A relative of Estelle Hedaya, 54, said the authorities had identified her remains. The final death toll is 98.
July 26, 2021, 4:22 p.m. ET
SURFSIDE, Fla. — More than a month after the terrifying collapse of a condominium tower in Surfside, Fla., the last victim’s remains were identified, one of her relatives said on Monday, bringing the final death toll to 98 and capping a tedious, painstaking effort to account for every resident who had been killed.
The brother of Estelle Hedaya, 54, who lived in a sixth-floor condo at the Champlain Towers South, said the police contacted the family on Monday, saying her remains had been found. The authorities scheduled a news conference for late Monday afternoon.
The disaster is now officially one of the deadliest structural building failures in American history.
Image
Searchers spent several weeks relentlessly digging through the steel and concrete remains of the 13-story building in a hunt for survivors, long after it seemed that hope had been lost. But after rescuing a 15-year-old boy, Jonah Handler, and finding his mother, Stacie Fang, who died at a hospital, just hours after the collapse on June 24, searchers found no one else alive in the debris, uncovering only human remains.
The search-and-rescue effort officially ended on July 7, but officials vowed that the recovery operation would not cease until all the rubble had been searched and every victim’s body had been found.
While the search for bodies at the collapse site concluded on Friday, teams of police officers continued to search off-site through millions of pounds of debris for evidence, victims’ remains and personal items belonging to residents.
The discovery of Ms. Hedaya’s remains ends a long, painful period of waiting for her family and friends, who followed along as every other victim was identified within a month of the collapse. Ms. Hedaya’s younger brother, Ikey, traveled to Florida twice, offering a DNA sample and praying near the site.
“Your first reaction is shock and disbelief, and then just crying till you can’t stop, and then accepting what you can’t change,” Ms. Hedaya’s mother, Linda Hedaya, said on Friday before her daughter’s remains were found.
Estelle Hedaya had relocated to Florida from New York to begin a new chapter, and so much in her life was looking up, said her brother. She had lost weight, bought a new red car and was focused on her spirituality.
Her mother’s wish was that her daughter would be found so she could receive a proper burial.
“We have no choice but to go on, but I want to give her the respect that she deserves,” Linda Hedaya said. “She was my firstborn. I called her my shining star.”
Search-and-rescue teams from Florida, several other states, Israel and Mexico battled dangerous terrain to comb through the remains of the collapsed condo, breathing through billows of thick smoke as they extinguished occasional fires.
Image
For more than a week, the remaining part of the building towered over them, until it was demolished on July 4 amid the loud fireworks celebrations of nearby Miami Beach, opening new avenues for searchers and speeding the recovery of remains. Tropical Storm Elsa brought lightning and heavy rain, forcing teams to periodically pause their efforts.
As the days dragged on, family members who gathered at a reunification center and nearby hotels for updates on the search were swabbed for DNA to help identify bodies, as a growing throng of people — including President Biden — paid their respects at nearby memorials.
Frequently Asked Questions
It could take months for investigators to determine precisely why a significant portion of the Surfside, Fla., building collapsed. But there are already some clues about potential reasons for the disaster, including design or construction flaws. Three years before the collapse, a consultant found evidence of “major structural damage” to the concrete slab below the pool deck and “abundant” cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage. Engineers who have visited the wreckage or viewed photos of it say that damaged columns at the building’s base may have less steel reinforcement than was originally planned.
Condo boards and homeowners’ associations often struggle to convince residents to pay for needed repairs, and most of Champlain Towers South’s board members resigned in 2019 because of their frustrations. In April, the new board chair wrote to residents that conditions in the building had “gotten significantly worse” in the past several years and that the construction would now cost $15 million instead of $9 million. There had also been complaints from residents that the construction of a massive, Renzo Piano-designed residential tower next door was shaking Champlain Towers South.
Entire family units died because the collapse happened in the middle of the night, when people were sleeping. The parents and children killed in Unit 802, for example, were Marcus Joseph Guara, 52, a fan of the rock band Kiss and the University of Miami Hurricanes; Anaely Rodriguez, 42, who embraced tango and salsa dancing; Lucia Guara, 11, who found astronomy and outer space fascinating; and Emma Guara, 4, who loved the world of princesses. A floor-by-floor look at the victims shows the extent of the devastation.
A 15-year-old boy and his mother were rescued from the rubble shortly after the building fell. She died in a hospital, however, and no more survivors were found during two weeks of a search-and-rescue mission. There had been hope that demolishing the remaining structure would allow rescuers to safely explore voids where someone could possibly have survived. But only bodies were found. There were 97 confirmed victims through July 14.
“We have all asked God for a miracle,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County told reporters when the search for survivors was declared over. “So the decision to transition from rescue to recovery is an extremely difficult one.”
As time passed, the authorities found it more and more difficult to identify the recovered victims because of the deteriorated state of the remains. The process required medical examiners to deploy extensive resources, including extracting DNA from bones and partnering with the F.B.I. to lift delicate fingerprints.
Officials will now turn their entire focus to determining what could have caused the collapse. While search teams dug through the rubble, so did homicide detectives from the Miami-Dade Police Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, looking for any clues.
“There was something very, very wrong with this situation,” Mayor Charles W. Burkett of Surfside said on June 26. “We’re going to find out what happened — not tomorrow, not today, but not in the indefinite future.”
English (US) ·