Authorities searching for victims of a deadly collapse in Florida said Sunday they hope to conclude their painstaking work in the coming weeks as a team of first responders from Israel departed the site. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said 90 deaths have now been confirmed in last month’s collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside, up from 86 a day before. Among them are 71 bodies that have been identified, and their families have been notified, she said. Some 31 people remain listed as missing. The Miami-Dade Police Department said three young children were among those recently identified. Crews continued to search the remaining pile of rubble, peeling layer after layer of debris in search of bodies. The unrelenting search has resulted in the recovery of over 14 million pounds (about 6.4 million kilograms) of concrete and debris, Levine Cava said. Read:Death toll in Florida condo collapse now 78 Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said it was uncertain when recovery operations would be completed because it remains hard to know when the final body would be found. When the recovery phase began Wednesday, officials were hoping it could be done within three weeks. In an interview Sunday morning near the site, Cominsky said it might now be as few as two weeks, based on the current pace of work. “We were looking at a 14-day to 21-day timeframe,” he said, adding that the timeline remained “a sliding scale.” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett stressed the care that rescue workers are taking in peeling back layers of rubble in hopes of recovering not only bodies but also possessions of the victims. He said the work is so delicate that crews have found unbroken wine bottles amid the rubble. Read:8 more dead pulled from rubble of collapsed Florida condo “It doesn’t get any less difficult and finding victims, that experience doesn’t change for our search and rescue folks,” he said. “It takes a toll, but you’ve got to love the heart that they’re putting into this and we’re very grateful.” On Saturday night, members of the community walked along Collins Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare, to celebrate the crews that have come from across the country — and as far as Israel and Mexico — to help in the rescue, and now recovery, effort. The Israeli search and rescue team arrived in South Florida shortly after the building collapsed on June 24 and was heading home Sunday. Members of the crews that have been searching the site 24 hours a day since the collapse lined both sides of the street, shaking hands and bidding farewell to the Israeli team. The Israeli team joined other task forces from around the United States to assist first responders from Miami and Miami-Dade County, working in 12-hour shifts. They have searched through South Florida’s intense summer heat, and in pouring rain, pausing only when lightning was spotted nearby. They also paused operations as officials made plans to implode the still-standing portion of the condo tower on July 4. Read:Recovery workers vow not to let up in Florida condo collapse The Israeli team used blueprints of the building to create detailed 3D images of the disaster site to aid in the search. They also gathered information from families of the missing, many of who were Jewish, to build a room-by-room model laying out where people would have been sleeping during the pre-dawn collapse. Levina Cava said the memorial walk on Saturday night was “a beautiful moment.” She gave the keys to the county to the Israeli commander and colonel — her first two handed out as mayor. Four teams from Florida, Indiana and Pennsylvania are still dedicated to the recovery effort, Cominsky said. Teams from Virginia, New Jersey and Ohio are preparing to leave. “To give you an answer when we feel we’ll recover everyone, I can’t give you an exact date,” the fire chief said. “We’re doing everything that we can — everything possible — until we feel that we’ve delayered every floor.”

Rescue workers now focused on finding remains instead of survivors in the rubble of a Florida condominium collapse vowed Thursday to keep up their search for victims until they cleared all the debris at the site. Earlier, a fire official told family members at a meeting that crews “will not stop working until they’ve gotten to the bottom of the pile and recovered every single of the families’ missing loved ones,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said at an evening news conference. He did not identify the official, but said the families were grateful. “This is exactly the message the families wanted to hear,” he said. As the search continued, a Paraguayan official disclosed late Thursday that rescuers had found in the rubble the bodies of Sophia López Moreira, the sister of Paraguay’s first lady Silvana Abdo, and López Moreira’s husband Luis Pettengill and the youngest of their three children. Read:Crews give up hope of finding survivors at collapse site That South American nation’s foreign minister, Euclides Acevedo, told Paraguay’s ABC Cardinal radio station that the two other children and the family assistant are still missing. “We ask people for their solidarity and a prayer,” he said. “In the face of a tragedy, Paraguayan people must show their traditional solidarity.” During the day, the death toll rose to 64, with another 76 people unaccounted for, Miami Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said earlier. Detectives are still working to verify that each of those listed as missing was actually in the building when it collapsed. Levine Cava said teams paused briefly atop the pile to mark the two-week anniversary of the disaster, but there was no let-up in the pace or number of rescuers at the site. “The work continues with all speed and urgency,” she said. “We are working around the clock to recover victims and to bring closure to the families as fast as we possibly can.” The painstaking search for survivors shifted to a recovery effort at midnight Wednesday after authorities said they had come to the agonizing conclusion that there was “no chance of life” in the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside. “When that happened, it took a little piece of the hearts of this community,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose congressional district includes Surfside. Michael Stratton, whose wife, Cassie, has not officially been confirmed dead, said friends and family had accepted “the loss of a bright and kind soul with an adventurous spirit.” He was talking on the phone with his wife right when the building collapsed, and she described shaking before the phone went dead, he has told Denver’s KDVR-TV. Read:8 more dead pulled from rubble of collapsed Florida condo “This wasn’t the miracle we prayed for, but it was not for lack of trying by rescue crews whose tireless bravery will never be forgotten,” he said in a statement Thursday. Wasserman Schultz and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged financial assistance to families of the victims, as well as to residents of the building who survived but lost all their possessions. In addition to property tax relief for residents of the building, DeSantis said, the state government will work toward channeling an outpouring of charitable donations to families affected by the collapse. Levine Cava said crews were also collecting and cataloguing numerous personal items, including legal documents, photo albums, jewelry, and electronic goods that they would seek to reunite families with. The Rev. Juan Sosa of St. Joseph Catholic Church met with other spiritual leaders at the collapse site, where heavy machinery worked in the rubble and mourners left flowers and photos. He said faith leaders hope to bring peace to the grieving families. “I’m hoping that they have some closure as we continue to pray for them,” he said. The change from search and rescue to recovery was somber. Hours before the transition Wednesday, rescue workers stood at solemn attention, and clergy members hugged local officials, many of them sobbing. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky said Wednesday he expects the recovery effort will take several more weeks. He added crews are now using heavier equipment, expediting the removal of debris. “We are expecting the progress to move at a faster pace,” he added. Read:Searchers at collapse site ‘not seeing anything positive’ Hope of finding survivors was briefly rekindled after workers demolished the remainder of the building, allowing access to new areas of debris. Some voids where survivors could have been trapped did exist, mostly in the basement and the parking garage, but no one was found alive. Instead, teams recovered more than a dozen additional victims. No one has been pulled out alive since the first hours after the 12-story building fell on June 24. Meanwhile, authorities are launching a grand jury investigation into the collapse. And at least six lawsuits have been filed by families.

A weakened but resilient Tropical Storm Elsa killed at least one person in Florida on Wednesday and injured several others when a possible tornado struck a campground at a Navy base in southeast Georgia. The National Hurricane Center said Elsa still packed 45 mph (72 kph) winds more than nine hours after making landfall along Florida’s northern Gulf Coast. The storm’s center was sweeping over eastern Georgia by 2 a.m. Thursday. Elsa will move over Georgia Thursday morning, over South Carolina and North Carolina later in the day, pass near the eastern mid-Atlantic states by Thursday night and move near or over the northeastern United States on Friday. Elsa seemed to spare Florida from significant damage, though it still threatened flooding downpours and caused several tornado warnings. The coasts of Georgia and South Carolina were under a tropical storm warning. Forecasters predicted Elsa would remain a tropical storm into Friday, and issued a tropical storm watch from North Carolina to Massachusetts. Authorities in Jacksonville, Florida, said one person was killed Wednesday when a tree fell and struck two cars. The National Weather Service reported 50 mph (80 kph) wind gusts in the city. The tree fell during heavy rains and no one else was injured, according to Capt. Eric Prosswimmer of the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department. “Now is a time to remember ... that weather is unpredictable,” Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said during a news conference Wednesday evening as he urged drivers to stay off the road. “This is really early in the (hurricane) season. We’re just outside of the July 4th holiday, we’ve had our first storm and, unfortunately, we’ve had a fatality.” Read:Elsa weakens to a tropical storm as it takes aim at Florida In nearby Camden County, Georgia, a possible tornado struck a park for recreational vehicles at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. About 10 people were injured and taken to hospitals by ambulance, said base spokesman Scott Bassett. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear. He said some buildings on the base appeared to have been damaged as well. Sergio Rodriguez, who lives near the RV park, said he raced to the scene fearing friends staying at the park might be hurt. The area was under a tornado warning Wednesday evening. “There were just RVs flipped over on their sides, pickup trucks flipped over, a couple of trailers had been shifted and a couple of trailers were in the water” of a pond on the site, Rodriguez said in a phone interview. Cellphone video he filmed at the scene showed trees bent low among scattered debris. He said ambulances arrived and began treating dazed people trying to understand what had happened. “A bunch of folks had lacerations and were just banged around,” Rodriguez said. “A majority of folks were in their trailers when it happened.” Earlier in the day, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told a news conference that no major structural damage had been reported as Elsa came ashore. “Clearly, this could have been worse,” the Republican governor said, though he cautioned that many storm-related deaths happen after the system passes. The hurricane center said parts of Florida could see up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of total rain accumulation from the storm. There was also a risk of flooding in Georgia and South Carolina, which were predicted to get 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of rainfall. A couple of tornadoes are possible Thursday morning from southeastern Georgia into the coastal plain of South Carolina. Read:Officials: Storm lashing Florida strengthens into hurricane Valdosta, Georgia, and surrounding Lowndes County came under a flash flood warning as Elsa’s center passed nearby. Some roads and yards flooded, and nearby Moody Air Force Base a reported wind gust of 41 mph (66 kph), said county spokeswoman Meghan Barwick. Scattered power outages were being reported along Elsa’s path Wednesday evening, with about 35,000 homes and businesses on either side of the Georgia-Florida state line without electricity, according to the website poweroutages.us. The storm complicated the search for potential survivors and victims in the collapse of a Miami-area condominium on June 24. Regardless, crews continued the search in the rubble of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, on the state’s southeast coast. The storm also temporarily halted demolition Wednesday on the remainder of an overturned cargo ship off the coast of Georgia. The South Korean freighter Golden Ray capsized in September 2019 off St. Simons Island, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Savannah. Crews have removed more than half the ship since November. Most salvage workers were sheltering indoors Wednesday, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Himes, a spokesperson for the multiagency command overseeing the demolition. Himes said crews would be watching to see if Elsa’s winds scatter any debris from the ship into the surrounding water. The vessel’s remains are open at both ends, like a giant tube on its side, and its cargo decks still contain hundreds of bashed and mangled cars. At the Hillbilly Fish Camp and R.V. Park in the south Georgia town of Waycross, Margie Freitag hunkered down Wednesday after pulling boats out of the water and picking up loose items ahead of the storm. Freitag said she had plenty of supplies after stocking up for the coronavirus pandemic. In Edisto Beach, South Carolina, Wednesday started muggy and overcast. Read:Tropical Storm Elsa moving across west Cuba, then to Florida “The kind of day you can just feel the weather wanting to move in,” Mayor Jane Darby said. The forecast for the barrier island 30 miles (48 kilometers) down the coast from Charleston was similar to a heavy summer thunderstorm – an inch or two (2.5 to 5 centimeters) of rain, winds gusting up to about 40 mph (64 kph) and maybe a little beach erosion. Other South Carolina beaches expected similar conditions, coming mostly overnight to be less of a bother to visitors during an extremely busy summer. “Businesses are struggling with workers in short supply a lot more than they are going to be bothered by this storm,” Darby said. “That’s where the stress is now.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard said 13 people were rescued from a boat that had left Cuba with 22 people aboard late Monday. Nine people remained missing. Elsa was also blamed for three deaths in the Caribbean before it reached Florida. Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

Emergency workers gave up Wednesday on any hope of finding survivors in the collapsed Florida condo building, telling sobbing families that there was “no chance of life” in the rubble as crews shifted their efforts to recovering more remains. The announcement followed increasingly somber reports from emergency officials, who said they sought to prepare families for the worst. “At this point, we have truly exhausted every option available to us in the search-and-rescue mission,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference. “We have all asked God for a miracle, so the decision to transition from rescue to recovery is an extremely difficult one,” she said. Read:8 more dead pulled from rubble of collapsed Florida condo Eight more bodies were recovered Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 54, the mayor said. Thirty-three of the dead have been identified, and 86 people are still unaccounted for. Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told families at a private briefing that crews would stop using rescue dogs and listening devices but would continue to search for their loved ones. “Our sole responsibility at this point is to bring closure,” he said as relatives cried in the background. Unlike some collapses that create W-shaped spaces where people can survive, a “pancake collapse” like the one in Surfside tends not to leave livable spaces, Jadallah said. “Where a pancake collapses, unfortunately it is a floor or a wall on top of a floor on top of a floor on top of a floor,” he said. “Typically, an individual has a specific amount of time in regards to lack of food, water and air. This collapse just doesn’t provide any of that sort.” Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said he expected the recovery operation to take several more weeks. The formal transition was to take place at midnight. Hours before the official change of mission, rescue workers, their helmets held to their hearts and their boots covered in dust, joined local officials, rabbis and chaplains in a moment of silence. The rabbis and chaplains walked down a line of officials, many of them sobbing, and hugged them one by one. Read:Searchers at collapse site ‘not seeing anything positive’ A Miami-Dade fire helicopter flew over the site. As the ceremony neared its end, an accordion player unseen on a nearby tennis court played Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” which was followed by a piccolo playing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Firefighters from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the federal government and elsewhere were also present. On a tall nearby fence, families and well-wishers had posted photos of the victims, supportive messages and flowers. Firefighters hung a banner atop the fence that read “Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Mourns With You.” Hope of finding survivors was briefly rekindled after workers demolished the remainder of the building on Sunday, allowing rescuers access to new areas of debris they hoped would contain “voids,” or open pockets with enough room for a person. Some of those voids did exist, mostly in the basement and the parking garage, but no survivors emerged. Instead, teams recovered more than a dozen additional victims. Because the building fell in the early morning hours, many residents were found dead in their beds. No one has been pulled out alive since the first hours after the 12-story Champlain Towers South building fell on June 24. Twice during the search, rescuers had to suspend the mission because of the instability of the remaining structure and the preparation for demolition. After initially hoping for miraculous rescues, families slowly braced themselves for the news that their relatives did not survive. “For some, what they’re telling us, it’s almost a sense of relief when they already know (that someone has died), and they can just start to put an end to that chapter and start to move on,” said Miami-Dade firefighter and paramedic Maggie Castro, who has updated families daily. Read:Florida condo collapse: Death toll climbs to 28, 117 still missing Authorities launched a grand jury investigation into the collapse, and at least six lawsuits have been filed by Champlain Towers families. The president of the neighboring Champlain Towers North condo association said engineers hired by the city arrived Tuesday to conduct three days of tests at the building, which has a similar design and was built around the same time as Champlain Towers South. “They are checking from one end of the building to the other, and everything is fine,” Naum Lusky told The Associated Press. Since the south building collapsed, he has insisted his tower is safe because his association kept up the maintenance and did not allow problems to fester.

The search for victims of the collapse of a Miami-area high-rise condominium reached its 14th day on Wednesday, with the death toll at three dozen, more than 100 people still unaccounted for and authorities sounding more and more grim. Crews on Tuesday dug through pulverized concrete where the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside once stood, filling buckets that were passed down a line to be emptied and then returned. The up-close look at the search, compliments of video released by the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department, came as eight more deaths were announced — the most for a single day since the search began. It also came as rain and wind from Tropical Storm Elsa disrupted the effort, though the storm was on track to make landfall far across the state. Read:Searchers at collapse site ‘not seeing anything positive’ Searchers have found no new signs of survivors, and although authorities said their mission was still geared toward finding people alive, they sounded increasingly somber. “Right now, we’re in search and rescue mode,” the county’s police director, Freddy Ramirez, said at a news conference Tuesday evening. He soon added: “Our primary goal right now is to bring closure to the families.” No one has been rescued from the site since the first hours after the building collapsed on June 24 when many of its residents were asleep. Searchers were still looking for any open spaces within the mounds of rubble where additional survivors might be found, said the county’s fire chief, Alan Cominsky. “Unfortunately, we are not seeing anything positive,” he said. Read:Florida condo collapse: Death toll climbs to 28, 117 still missing Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the families of the missing were preparing for news of “tragic loss.” She said President Joe Biden, who visited the area last week, called Tuesday to offer his continued support. “I think everybody will be ready when it’s time to move to the next phase,” she said. Reporters got their closest in-person look at the site Tuesday, though it was limited to the portion of the building that workers tore down Sunday after the initial collapse left it standing but dangerously unstable. A pile of shattered concrete and twisted steel stood about 30 feet (9 meters) high and spanned roughly half the length of a football field. A pair of backhoes pulled rubble off the pile, which blocked any view of the search effort. Severe weather from Elsa hindered search efforts to a degree. Lightning forced rescuers to pause their work for two hours early Tuesday, Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. And winds of 20 mph (32 kph), with stronger gusts, hampered efforts to move heavy debris with cranes, officials said. Read:Search back on after rest of South Florida condo demolished However, the storm’s heaviest winds and rain would bypass Surfside and neighboring Miami as Elsa weakened along its path to an expected landfall somewhere between Tampa Bay and Florida’s Big Bend. Crews have removed 124 tons (112 metric tonnes) of debris from the site, Cominsky said. The debris was being sorted and stored in a warehouse as potential evidence in the investigation into why the building collapsed, officials said. Workers have been freed to search a broader area since the unstable remaining portion of the building was demolished.

A storm that has lashed the Caribbean and the Florida Keys with pounding rain and gusty winds and complicated the search for survivors in a deadly condominium collapse has strengthened into a hurricane. The National Weather Service said Tuesday that Hurricane Elsa was packing winds as high as 75 mph (121 kph) as it hurtled toward Florida’s northern Gulf Coast. The Category 1 storm is expected to make landfall between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, somewhere between the Tampa Bay area and the Big Bend region. In addition to damaging winds and heavy rains, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center warned of life-threatening storm surges, flooding and isolated tornadoes. A hurricane warning has been issued for a long stretch of coastline, from Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay to the Steinhatchee River in Florida’s Big Bend area. Landfall was expected somewhere in between. The Tampa area is highly vulnerable to storm surge because the offshore waters and Tampa Bay are quite shallow, experts say. Gov. Ron DeSantis said the area would take a hard hit from the storm overnight. Read:Tropical Storm Elsa moving across west Cuba, then to Florida Now is “not a time to joyride” because “we do have hazardous conditions out there,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday. The storm is expected to make landfall between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, he said. Still, on the barrier island beach towns along the Gulf Coast, it was largely business as usual with few shutters or plywood boards going up early Tuesday. Free sandbags were being handed out at several locations, and a limited number of storm shelters opened Tuesday morning in at least four counties around the Tampa Bay area, although no evacuations have been ordered. Nancy Brindley, 85, who lives in a seaside house built in 1923, said she has experienced 34 previous tropical cyclones and is not having shutters put on her windows. Her main concern is what will happen to sand on the adjacent beach and the dunes that protect her house and others. She’s staying through the storm. “The main concern here is, if it doesn’t speed up and decides to stall, there will be enormous erosion,” she said. Friends Chris Wirtz, 47, and Brendan Peregrine, 44, were staying put at a beachfront inn with their families. Both are from Tampa, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) across the bay and have been through storms many times. “Before we left, we knew it was coming,” Wirtz said. Others were taking no chances. Annie Jones, 51, has lived along the Gulf Coast her entire life. She was buying ice and food at a local grocery store in advance of the storm. “I’ve seen this happen over the years and I decided to load up,” Jones said. Read:Tropical Storm Elsa nears Cuba amid fears of flooding Across the Tampa Bay region that’s home to about 3.5 million people, events, government offices and schools were closing down early Tuesday in advance of the storm. Tampa International Airport shut down at 5 p.m. Duke Energy, the main electric utility in the Tampa Bay area, said in a statement it has about 3,000 employees, contractors, tree specialists and support personnel ready to respond to power outages in the storm’s aftermath. Additional crews are being brought in from other states served by Duke Energy. “We’re trained and prepared, and we want to ensure our customers are safe and prepared for any impacts from the storm,” said Todd Fountain, the utility’s Florida storm director. The fifth game of the Stanley Cup finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens, set for Wednesday night, will take place, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said. The Lightning lead the NHL’s championship series 3-1 and could clinch the title with a victory. Bands of rain reached Surfside on Florida’s Atlantic coast, soaking the rubble of the Champlain Towers South, which collapsed June 24, killing at least 36 people. Search and rescue crews have worked through rain in search of more than 100 others unaccounted for, although lightning forced rescuers to pause their work for two hours early Tuesday, officials said. Its core was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Tampa. It was continuing to move to the north at 14 mph (about 23 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center. DeSantis expanded a state of emergency to cover 33 counties. After Florida, forecasters predicted Elsa would hit coastal Georgia and South Carolina, portions of which were under a tropical storm warning. Read:Hurricane Elsa races toward Haiti amid fears of landslides Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp issued a state of emergency Tuesday affecting 92 counties in middle, south and southeast Georgia in preparation for the storm. Elsa’s westward shift spared the lower Florida Keys a direct hit, but the islands were still getting plenty of rain and wind Tuesday. Cuban officials evacuated 180,000 people against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people. Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

Officials overseeing the search at the site of the Florida condominium collapse sounded increasingly somber Tuesday about the prospects for finding anyone alive, saying they have detected no new signs of life in the rubble as the death toll climbed to 36. Crews in yellow helmets and blue jumpsuits searched the debris for a 13th day while wind and rain from the outer bands of Hurricane Elsa complicated their efforts. Video released by the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department showed workers lugging pickaxes and power saws through piles of concrete rubble barbed with snapped steel rebar. Other searchers could be seen digging with gloved hands through pulverized concrete and dumping shovels of debris into large buckets. Search-and-rescue workers continued to look for open spaces where people might be found alive nearly two weeks after the disaster struck at the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside. Read:Florida condo collapse: Death toll climbs to 28, 117 still missing “We’re actively searching as aggressively as we can,” Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said at a news conference. But he added: “Unfortunately, we are not seeing anything positive. The key things — void spaces, living spaces — we’re not seeing anything like that.” Reporters got their closest look at the site Tuesday, though it was limited to the portion of the building that demolition workers tore down Sunday after the initial collapse left it standing but dangerously unstable. A pile of shattered concrete and twisted steel stood about 30 feet (9 meters) tall, topped by a couple of air conditioning units, and spanned roughly half the length of a football field. A pair of backhoes pulled rubble off the pile, which blocked any view of the search effort. While officials still call the efforts a search-and-rescue operation, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said families of those still missing are preparing for news of “tragic loss.” She said President Joe Biden, who visited the area last week, called Tuesday to offer his continued support. “I think everybody will be ready when it’s time to move to the next phase,” said Levine Cava, who stressed that crews would use the same care as they go through the rubble even after their focus shifts from searching for survivors to recovering the dead. Read:Search back on after rest of South Florida condo demolished “Really, you will not see a difference,” she said. “We will carefully search for bodies and belongings, and to catalog and respectfully deal with any remains that we find.” No one has been rescued alive since the first hours after the collapse, which struck early on June 24, when many of the building’s residents were asleep. Officials announced Tuesday that teams had recovered eight additional bodies — the highest one-day total since the collapse. More than 100 people remain unaccounted for. Severe weather from Elsa threatened to hinder search efforts. Lightning forced rescuers to pause their work for two hours early Tuesday, Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. And stiff winds of 20 mph (32 kph), with stronger gusts, hampered efforts to move heavy debris with cranes, officials said. Read:Florida Collapse: Demolition of condominium set; rescue work to resume after However, the storm’s heaviest winds and rain were expected to bypass Surfside and neighboring Miami as Elsa strengthened before making landfall somewhere between Tampa Bay and Florida’s Big Bend on a path across northern Florida. “Active search and rescue continued throughout the night, and these teams continue through extremely adverse and challenging conditions,” Levine Cava said. “Through the rain and through the wind, they have continued searching.” Crews have removed 124 tons (112 metric tonnes) of debris from the site, Cominsky said. The debris was being sorted and stored in a warehouse as potential evidence in the investigation into why the building collapsed, officials said. Workers have been freed to search a broader area since the weekend demolition of the unstable remaining portion of the condo building. Officials said that gave rescuers access to spaces that were previously closed off, including bedrooms where people were believed to be sleeping at the time of the disaster.

Rescuers were given the all-clear to resume work looking for victims at a collapsed South Florida condo building after demolition crews set off a string of explosives that brought down the last of the building in a plume of dust. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told the Associated Press that the demolition went “exactly as planned” around 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Crews immediately began clearing some of the new debris so rescuers could start making their way into parts of the underground garage that is of particular interest. Once there, they were hoping to get a clearer picture of voids that may exist in the rubble and could possibly harbor the 121 people believed to be trapped under the fallen wing of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside that collapsed June 24. No one has been rescued alive since the first hours after the collapse. On Sunday, Miami-Dade police identified David Epstein, 58, as one of the 24 people known to have perished in the fallen tower. His remains were recovered Friday. Read:Florida Collapse: Demolition of condominium set; rescue work to resume after Shortly after the demolition, cranes were again in motion at the site, suggesting that crews were back in place in the wee hours of Monday morning to sift through the rubble from above and below. Rescuers are hoping the demolition will give them access for the first time to parts of the garage area. Once a new pathway into the initial rubble is secure, “we will go back to the debris pile, and we’ll begin our search and rescue efforts,” Miami-Dade Fire Chief Albert Cominsky said at a press conference several hours before the remaining wing of the residential high rise came tumbling down. During the demolition, a loud rat-at-tat of explosions echoed from the structure. Then the building began to fall, one floor after another, cascading into an explosion of dust. Plumes billowed into the air, as crowds watched the scene from afar. “It was picture perfect. Exactly what we were told would happen,” Levine Cava said in an interview shortly after the demolition. Levine Cava expressed relief that the search for victims can now continue, after being suspended on Saturday so workers could begin rigging the damaged but still-upright portion of the the partly-collapsed tower with explosives — a precarious operation that could have caused the structure to fail. “I feel relief because this building was unstable. The building was hampering our search efforts,” Levine Cava said. Some residents had pleaded to return to their homes one last time to retrieve belongings left in haste, but were denied. Others wondered about the pets left behind, even though officials said they found no signs of animals after making three final sweeps, including the use of drones to peer into the abandoned structure. Read:Collapse survivors escaped with their lives, but little else Approaching Tropical Storm Elsa has added urgency to the demolition plans with forecasts suggesting there could be strong winds in the area by Monday. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida because of the storm, making federal aid possible. The latest forecasts have moved the storm westward, mostly sparing South Florida, but National Hurricane Center meteorologist Robert Molleda said the area could still feel effects. “We’re expecting primarily tropical storm force gusts,” Molleda said, referring to gusts above 40 mph (64 kph). The decision to demolish the remnants of the Surfside building came after concerns mounted that the damaged structure was at risk of falling, endangering the crews below and preventing them from operating in some areas. Parts of the remaining building shifted on Thursday, prompting a 15-hour suspension in the work. Authorities had gone door-to-door to advise nearby residents of the timing of the demolition, and to ask them to keep windows closed. They were told to stay inside until two hours after the blast to avoid the dust raised by the implosion. The method used for Sunday night’s demolition is called “energetic felling,” which uses small detonation devices and relies on the force of gravity. Levine Cava, speaking ahead of the demolition, said that should bring the building down in place, containing the collapse to the immediate surroundings so as to minimally disturb the existing mound of debris — where scores of people are believed to be trapped. Officials used tarps to visually mark the search area, in case new debris scattered unexpectedly. Read:Latest victims in condo tower collapse include 2 children State officials said they hired the BG Group, a general contractor based in Delray Beach, Florida, to lead the demolition. They did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how the firm was selected, but a contract for the project calls for the state to pay the company $935,000. A spokesperson for the state’s Division of Emergency Management said the company subcontracted with Maryland-based Controlled Demolition Inc., which experts say is among only a handful of companies in the U.S. that demolishes structures using explosives. The company was supposed to place explosives on the basement and lobby levels of the still-standing structure, according to the contract for the work. CDI is “probably one of the best” in the industry, said Steve Schwartz, a member of the National Demolition Association’s board of directors. He described the company’s president and owner, Mark Loizeaux, as “cool, calm and collected.” In implosions — using explosives to have a building fall in on itself — the charges are generally set off in rapid succession over a matter of seconds, said Scott Homrich, who heads the National Demolition Association and runs his own demolition company in Detroit, Michigan. Setting the explosives off at intervals serves to break up the building at the same time it’s coming down.

Susana Alvarez fled her home on the 10th floor of Champlain Towers South, escaping with her life and almost nothing else. “I don’t have anything,” said the 62-year-old survivor of the condominium building collapse just outside Miami. “I walked out with my pajamas and my phone.” The disaster that killed at least 18 people, with more than 140 still missing, also rendered dozens of people homeless. Many lost cars, too, buried in the building’s underground parking garage. Though most who managed to flee to safety lived in parts of the building that remain standing, they have little hope of returning to reclaim clothing, computers, jewelry and sentimental possessions they left behind. Read:Devastated condo community looks to Biden visit for comfort Officials said Thursday they’re making plans for the likely demolition of all parts of the building that didn’t collapse. The announcement came after search and rescue operations were paused for hours because of growing signs the structure was dangerously unstable. Alvarez is still dealing with the trauma. She hasn’t slept in a bed since the collapse a week ago. Instead she’s been sleeping in a chair, constantly thinking of the victims who couldn’t escape. She still hears the screams from that night. “I lost everything,” Alvarez said, “and it doesn’t mean anything to me.” Still, friends and even complete strangers have been helping replace what she’s lost. Friends she’s staying with outfitted her with new clothes and a computer. An eyeglass store refilled her prescription, even though she never called it in. And she got the last condo in a 16-unit building that was opened up rent-free to Surfside survivors for the month of July. It’s unclear exactly how many residents have been displaced, but those with insurance policies should recoup at least a portion of their losses. Victims also appear likely to get some money from the liability insurer for Champlain Towers South’s condominium association, which has at least four lawsuits pending related to the collapse. An attorney for James River Insurance Company wrote to the judge in one case this week that it plans to “voluntarily tender its entire limit” from the association’s policy toward resolving claims. An attached copy of the policy showed limits between $1 million and $2 million. Michael Capponi, the president of a Miami-area nonprofit that for the past decade has helped victims of disasters from hurricanes to wildfires in the U.S. and abroad, said he has personally dealt with 50 people who lost homes in the building. Read:Latest victims in condo tower collapse include 2 children Capponi’s organization, Global Empowerment Mission, has distributed roughly $75,000 in gift cards among surfside survivors, and he’s also working with hotel and condo owners to find places they can live for the next two months. Most people who have contacted his nonprofit for help lived in the part that is still standing but assume their homes and anything inside are a complete loss. “They are going to basically have to start all over again,” Capponi said. “Some of them don’t have insurance, and they’ve lost everything they worked all their lives for.” Raysa Rodriguez, a retired postal worker who lived at Champlain Towers South for 17 years and was close to paying off her mortgage, described in a lawsuit she filed against the condominium association how crashing sounds roused her from bed the night of the collapse. “The building swayed like a sheet of paper. ... I ran to the balcony. I (opened) the doors and a wall of dust hit me,” she said in the filing. Rodriguez helped neighbors escape to a second-floor balcony where firefighters helped them to the ground. Now she has moved in with family members and assumes what’s left of the building will be torn down with no chance to recover belongings. “She lived there for a long time,” said Adam Schwartzbaum, her attorney, “and she was planning to live there for the rest of her life.” Ryan Logan, the American Red Cross’ regional disaster officer for south Florida, said the organization has been helping about 18 families, and some of them have been looking for ways they can help other victims. Read:Florida officials pledge multiple probes into condo collapse “These folks that we are serving, who we know they are having the worst experience of their lives, are turning around and asking you what can they do to serve,” Logan said. “It’s nothing short of amazing.” Gabriel Nir narrowly escaped a first-floor apartment with his mother and 15-year-old sister. The family had just moved in six months ago. Nir, a recent college graduate, was living there while he looked for a job and considered medical school. For now they are staying at a nearby hotel, the floor of their room cluttered with items donated by friends and strangers. They have no luggage. Their car was destroyed in the building’s garage. But all the material possessions they lost can be replaced, he said. “I’m just grateful I made it out alive with my family,” Nir said.

As the search for survivors of a Florida condo collapse enters its second week, rescue crews and relatives of those still missing are scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden Thursday, in a visit many are hoping will provide some measure of comfort to a devastated community. Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to thank first responders and search and rescue teams. They also plan to meet with the families of victims, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. The president’s visit comes a week after Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium building in Surfside, suddenly came crashing down, leaving a pancaked rubble. Search crews going through the ruins found the remains of six people Wednesday, bringing the number of confirmed dead to 18. The number of residents unaccounted for stands at 145. Read:Latest victims in condo tower collapse include 2 children Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said he hopes Biden’s visit will be a morale booster for the entire community. “We’ve had several challenges from weather, sorrow, pain. And I think that the president coming will bring some unity here for our community, support, like our governor, our mayor, all of us together,” he said. Psaki said the president and first lady also want to make sure that state and local officials have the resources and support they need under an emergency declaration approved by Biden for Miami-Dade. She emphasized Wednesday that the White House is being careful to coordinate with officials on the ground to ensure that Biden’s visit doesn’t do anything to “pull away” from the ongoing search and rescue effort. State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis said he hopes to emphasize to Biden that there is a need for mental health resources to treat rescue workers for post-traumatic stress disorder. “These guys are so blindly focused on the mission of saving lives, and unfortunately they see things they can’t unsee,” Patronis said. “We want to make sure that when they ultimately do go home, that we’re giving them the strength … to be able to get back to work without fear of nightmares and challenges.” Read:Florida officials pledge multiple probes into condo collapse Since the tragedy, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, have projected a united and cooperative front as they respond to the crisis. Previously, they had sometimes sparred over how best to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, with clashes over wearing masks and other measures to control the pandemic. But no signs of partisanship have been evident in Surfside. DeSantis has spoken appreciatively of the aid coming from Washington, even commending the Biden administration for “stepping up to the plate.” “We really appreciate having the support of the president,” DeSantis said at a Friday news conference in Surfside -- although hours before, he had blasted President Joe Biden’s border policies during an earlier press conference in the state’s Panhandle. DeSantis, who is up for reelection next year, is said to be exploring a run for the presidency in 2024. Among the remains found Wednesday were those of a mother and her two daughters, ages 4 and 10, a loss that Cava called “too great to bear.” Read:‘Our backyard’: Tragedy strikes home for Miami-Dade rescuers Miami-Dade police identified the children as 10-year-old Lucia Guara and 4-year-old Emma Guara, and their mother as 42-year-old Anaely Rodriguez. The remains of their father, Marcus Guara, 52, were pulled from the rubble Saturday and identified Monday. The cause of the collapse is under investigation. A 2018 engineering report found that the building’s ground-floor pool deck was resting on a concrete slab that had “major structural damage” and needed extensive repairs. The report also found “abundant cracking” of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage. Just two months before the building came down, the president of its board wrote a letter to residents saying that structural problems identified in the 2018 inspection had “gotten significantly worse” and that major repairs would cost at least $15.5 million. With bids for the work still pending, the building suddenly collapsed last Thursday.