Condominium Collapse Florida

(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Champlain Towers South

One Year Later

Sifting through loss and lessons

by

For the survivors and families of the 98 fallen victims of the Surfside condo collapse, the past year has seen a flurry of mourning, litigation and effort to honor or recover all that has been lost. Now, as the one-year anniversary of the tragedy approaches, those affected are beginning to see some results.

Settlements have been all but finalized for cases related to property loss and wrongful death suits, plans for a full weekend of events honoring survivors and victims are well underway, and the town has assembled its first remembrance for public viewing.

Still, there remains one mind-wracking issue that many feel is no closer to being resolved: the cause of the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South during the early morning hours of June 24, 2021.

Ongoing Investigation

At a May 10 Surfside town commission meeting, structural engineer Allyn Kilsheimer – whom the town hired to investigate the collapse of the 12-story building – said things are moving very slowly.

An extremely complex process has only been exacerbated by the fact that all he has to work with are architectural drawings and rubble. Progress won’t begin to ramp up until Kilsheimer is able to get his hands on samples from the site that are currently in the possession of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an organization employed by the U.S. Department of Commerce that has been working on its own investigation.

In the meantime, Surfside residents have expressed their disapproval of “business as usual” when it comes to new developments in the town prior to the investigation being completed. During an April 12 commission meeting, constituents were upset to hear that the board unanimously approved plans for Hillcrest by the Sea at 9165 Collins Ave., just four blocks away from the site of the collapse.

Kilsheimer has since then announced that geotechnical studies are complete, revealing no indication that the ground itself could have contributed to the collapse – although this doesn’t rule out that new discoveries won’t eventually be made.

The geotechnical examination is of particular interest to East Oceanside Development, a company owned by Dubai-based DAMAC Properties that will purchase the cleared land at 8777 Collins Ave. The company faced zero competition against its $120 million bid for the nearly two-acre oceanfront property.

But, sale or no sale, the town of Surfside won’t rest until an official cause of the building’s collapse is determined. Even after a more than $1 billion settlement was reached in the wrongful death suit – to which the town contributed – Kilsheimer and his team have their work cut out for them.

“The town of Surfside is still left standing, very interested in finding out the causation and the cause of the collapse, so we hope to work with the receiver and the court to continue to have access to the site,” said town attorney Lynn Dannheisser at a May 16 special commission meeting.

At that meeting, Tony Recio, an attorney with Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman representing the town, assured the board that he and his colleagues are actively working with legal counsel in order to figure out how Surfside should continue without the court’s joint protocol regarding ongoing investigations.

Meanwhile, Miami-Dade County has rolled back its building inspection and recertification process from 40 to 30 years to try and prevent future catastrophes like the one that befell the residents of Champlain Towers South. Broward and Miami-Dade counties are currently the only ones in the state with any required structural and electrical safety inspections for aging condo buildings.

Legal Victories

Following a nearly 11-month class-action lawsuit, plaintiffs’ legal counsel – led by attorneys Rachel Furst and Harley Tropin – announced on May 24 a $1,021,199,000 settlement tentatively reached in wrongful death claims.

Florida attorney Sean Domnick, who has been closely following the litigation, doesn’t believe that billion-dollar settlement will impede upon the investigation efforts – and, inversely, neither will the investigation impede upon the settlement.

“Neither side will be able to come back and say, ‘Gee, we learned this and you didn’t pay us enough,’ or, ‘We learned this and we paid you too much,’” he said.

And, Domnick added, as vast as the settlement is, it’s likely that the insurance companies involved realized how greatly at risk they were of paying more had the issue gone to trial.

The settlement pool, which exceeded the amount of defendants listed for the case, included insurers of the tower’s security company, architects, engineers and the law firm that represented the Champlain Towers South condo association. Also included in the settlement were the developers of Eighty Seven Park, a condominium next door to Champlain Towers South whose construction allegedly contributed to the collapse.

Among the settling parties were DeSimone Consulting Engineers, 8701 Collins Development, Terra Group, Terra World Investments, John Moriarty and Associates of Florida, the Town of Surfside, Willcott Engineering, Stantec Architecture, Becker and Poliakoff, Morabito Consultants and NV5.

At a May 11 status conference, Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman commended counsel for what he referred to as a “Herculean undertaking.”

“I’m somewhat at a loss for words because the result that has been achieved in this case – and the speed at which it’s been achieved – is, in this court’s view, beyond extraordinary,” he said.

In addition to that settlement, counsel was also able to attain $96 million for 136 unit owners who lost property, funded by insurance and the pending land sale.

How the money will be distributed among those affected is still pending, awaiting the analysis of individual claim forms through which factors like age and income will be assessed. For wrongful death claims, the number of a victim’s survivors – how many children they may have had, for example – as well as the nature of such relationships, will also be considered. For personal injury claims, the severity of injuries will be weighed against each other.

Victims will be able to opt out of the lengthy claims process in exchange for a flat-rate share of the settlement, which varies depending on their relationship to the collapse.

Hanzman is set on having the money in the hands of victims no later than September, and although the settlement has yet to be finalized he plans to close the case before the collapse’s one-year anniversary on June 24.

Weekend of Remembrance

As that date nears, family members of those who died in the collapse are actively working with Surfside officials to plan a weekend of events during which families and survivors can mourn, honor and remember.

Joined by Mayor Shlomo Danzinger and Town Manager Andrew Hyatt, the planning committee has decided to hold an event on the day of the anniversary where politicians, survivors and victims’ family members will be able to speak publicly about the tragedy. At a planning meeting April 27, Pablo Langesfeld, who lost his 26-year-old daughter, Nicole, requested that President Joe Biden be invited.

Representatives from Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s office have offered to produce a plaque recognizing the victims to present to family members at the event. They’ve also mentioned Commissioner Sally Heyman’s willingness to sponsor a resolution that would declare June 24 as an official remembrance day.

The town has also ordered the production of more than 500 commemorative coins, many of which will be granted to the first responders who spent weeks at the site searching for remains.

But first, relatives of the lost victims will meet at the site of the collapse at around 1:22 a.m. – exactly the moment Champlain Towers South fell – for a private candlelight vigil. That event will not be open to survivors.

The planning committee was temporarily stumped when trying to decide who exactly should be allowed to attend two additional events on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon at the Young Israel synagogue.

Yadira Santos, who survived the collapse along with her son, said she believes survivors should be granted a private moment to mourn as well.

“I empathize and I grieve with all of the families as well because, again, these were our friends, our neighbors and our community,” she said. “I think it’s time for us to unite instead of being families of the deceased versus survivors, or what it is that’s out there, because it’s not. It’s all of us together.”

But to Chana Wasserman, who lost her parents, Ingrid and Tzvi Ainsworth, they are dealing with two different experiences.

“I understand that there are people that survived and that they lived there and they had a long life in that building, but we lost actual people, and we’re going there to remember them and honor them. That’s what the night is for,” she said.

In the end, the committee agreed that Friday evening will be reserved for relatives of the deceased and members of the search-and-rescue team who are seeking closure. Saturday, however, will be open to survivors, including those who were evacuated from the half of the condo that remained intact, as well as their immediate family members.

A Permanent Memorial

The planning committee for anniversary events also will be responsible for choosing a memorial to be permanently displayed in Surfside.

There has been talk within the commission of hosting a competition through which artists from around the world could propose potential designs – much like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition that eventually gave rise to Maya Lin’s structure in Washington, D.C.

Artists Julia Balk and Roger Abramson have also taken it upon themselves to create a model for their own memorial design, an obelisk of seashells, which they presented to the planning committee. Offering to do their own fundraising, they hope to create a larger-scale structure to be erected within the town.

But the decision on how to handle the issue will ultimately be up to the committee of relatives. Also up for discussion is the memorial’s location – although the general consensus is that it should be displayed at the end of 88th Street, adjacent to the site of the collapse.

In the meantime, the town put up a sign along the fence surrounding the site, listing the names of each individual lost. The commission also hopes to display a smaller version at the neighboring Veterans Park.

Family members, as well as Levine Cava, Sen. Jason Pizzo and members of the Surfside town commission, gathered May 12, 2022, for the launch of the temporary memorial.

“Nothing will bring them back, but we will remember those souls forever,” Langesfeld said.

“In the spot behind us there once stood a building like every other building here on Collins Avenue, a building that we all trusted would remain standing,” said Wasserman. “What is now left there is one big gaping hole in the ground, much like the big gaping hole that is left in all of us.”

In the month after her loss, Wasserman published a letter to her parents through a blog post, revealing the deep struggle she and her siblings endured upon hearing of the collapse, and then later of her parents’ deaths.

“The hardest part of going through this is having to go through it without you by my side,” Wasserman wrote. “Saying goodbye to the two people in my life who have shown love, support and kindness is the hardest thing Hashem has ever asked of me. Two pieces of my heart left this world with you. The loss for us feels too tremendous to handle.”

Article updated to reflect the recent passage by the Miami-Dade County Commission of an update to the building recertification.

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