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Champlain Towers South Demolished, as Tropical Storm Approaches Miami
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© Lynne Sladky/Associated PressSURFSIDE, Fla.—Officials demolished the rest of Champlain Towers South Sunday night in an effort to clear the way for rescue work for 120 missing people.
With a rolling series of sharp pops, a low rumble and a massive plume of white dust, the remaining portion crashed down Sunday night at 10:30 p.m. local time. The demolition is intended to give search-and-rescue crews additional room to look for people who are still missing since a part of the adjoining building collapsed June 24.
Officials said they were eager to bring down the building ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa’s potential arrival in Florida in the next few days.
“So often demolitions of buildings are a spectacle, it’s almost like a show. And this particular demolition is certainly the furthest thing from that,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) at a press conference Sunday evening before the implosion. “This demolition is a very tragic situation not only for those who are still hoping to find loved ones who have survived, but also to the survivor families who got out of the building and all of whose belongings are in that apartment building.”
The jagged and listing tower was in such precarious condition that residents weren’t allowed to return to their apartments to retrieve any of their valuables in the days since they fled. Authorities decided to bring down the building in a controlled demolition because they feared the building may not be able to withstand the wind and rains of an approaching tropical storm.
Search-and-rescue crews were expected to be back on the scene looking for the missing residents within an hour of the dust settling, officials said Sunday night. The implosion gives workers about one third more space to search because they weren’t allowed near the building when it was still standing.
Residents of Surfside gathered several blocks north of the collapse site to watch the demolition.
“If you have a mask, put it on!” a police officer shouted to the people who had gathered to watch, moments before dynamite took the building down, sending a cloud of dust higher than the building once stood.
Apart from the faint blasts of distant fireworks, there was barely any noise in the moments waiting for the dynamite to blow.
Video: Half of Champlain Towers South falls in matter of seconds. (The Washington Post)
Elsa was downgraded to a tropical storm from a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday by forecasters with the National Hurricane Center. Sustained winds still exceeded 70 miles an hour as of late Saturday. The storm has killed at least three people in the eastern Caribbean.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said destroying the building was a difficult decision that she made by balancing the desire to keep searching for victims and investigate the collapse with the need to protect rescue workers and area residents from harm if the building were to fall. Officials had previously expected to take weeks planning a methodical removal of the remaining structure.
The demolition will expand the search area by about one-third, said Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett.
He said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday morning that crews won’t stop looking for survivors.
“We are not even near that,” he said. “This rescue effort will go on as far as I’m concerned until everyone is pulled out of that debris.”
“The fear was the hurricane might take it down for us and take it down in the wrong direction,” Mr. Burkett said.
Several officials said they have heard from many people about concerns for pets believed to be left behind in the towers when residents evacuated. Rescuers have searched apartments using thermal-imaging devices, drones and traps, Ms. Levine Cava said, and no surviving animals have been found.
Max Benoliel, who owned a unit in Champlain Towers South, said many key events in his life took place there. He had his first date with his wife there in 1987, and his three children were born there, he said. He said at one point his wife’s family owned as many as eight units.
“It’s sad that the building is being demolished,” Mr. Benoliel said at a memorial service outside the site of the collapsed building Sunday morning. “They have to recover every single body.”
Workers recovered two additional bodies late Friday night at the partially collapsed condo building in Surfside, bringing the death toll to 24, with about 120 still unaccounted for.
They haven’t rescued a survivor since June 24, the day the building collapsed.
Write to Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com
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