Miami weighs when to finish searching for Florida apartment survivors

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Rescue workers and medical workers refused to give up hope, even as they admitted that hope dwindled every day. People have survived for days after buildings collapsed elsewhere, as has been seen after earthquakes in Haiti and Mexico. Additional urban search and rescue teams, activated by FEMA this week, have headed to Surfside to assist with search efforts and preparations for the upcoming hurricane.

“I’m not going here now hoping to find victims – we’re going there with the goal of finding survivors,” Penn Task Force 1 commander Ken Bajurek said as he drove to Florida on Thursday. With more than 70 engineers, doctors, logistics experts, and other professionals, and five dogs. “I still think there is a slight chance. A little chance is better than no chance.”

Yuval Klein, 42, an officer in the rescue unit sent by the Israeli army, added: “The odds are very low, but at the same time, there is always hope – we have seen miracles. We do not want to close this option.”

In the face of sweltering Florida heat and thunderstorms, teams of structural engineers, logistics experts, firefighters and reservists guarded the site, combing the rubble in front of the remaining structure.

They retrieved fragments of individual spirits – a bag, stuffed animals – from under the concrete slabs, which were stacked on top of each other and difficult to move.

Others painstakingly interviewed the families, persuading them to remember the specific details that could be crucial to identifying places in the wreck: the location of the bedroom, the color of the carpet, and where the bed was placed. This information was used to reconstruct an interior map of the building and to help navigate the ruins.

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