Surfside, FL Condo Collapse: Israeli Search Team Arrives

[voiceofreason]

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/06/...rating-wait-families-surfside-condo-collapse/

Frustrating Wait For Families Seeking News On Loved Ones In Condo Collapse, Israeli Search Team Arrives
June 27, 2021 at 1:00 pm

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – It’s an agonizing wait for families as they desperately seek news about their loved ones who lived in Champlain Towers South which partially collapsed last week.

They’ve given DNA samples to help identify the bodies or remains found in the rubble.
READ MORE:
Surfside Condo Collapse First Responders Work Tirelessly To Find Possible Survivors, Nine Confirmed Dead

Meanwhile, a team from Israel is at the site to assist in the search and rescue operation.

“It’s a difficult site, we call it a site in Israel, with the pancaking it’s very tight but we’ve seen it before. Ten years ago I found a man in similar circumstances alive in Haiti in 2010. We saved him, he was 64 years old,” said Golan Vach, commander of the Israeli team.

The Israeli defense force sent the team after talks between Governor Ron DeSantis, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Israel’s Minister of Defense. The team was requested by some Surfside residents.

“One of the questions from the residents was pretty poignant. They wanted to know if the Israeli team thought that the Miami-Dade team had been doing the right thing. The commander from the Israeli team did not hesitate to say they would be doing exactly the same thing, which was a beautiful validation of the state of the art techniques and the integrity, energy, enthusiasm, and dedication we have with our team members here,” said Surfside Mayor Gary Burkett.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-d...orida-disaster-site-as-death-toll-rises-to-9/

The 12-story oceanfront Champlain Towers South pancaked in the middle of the night Thursday as residents slept. Surveillance video of the collapse showed it coming down in just a few seconds.

Many members of the local Jewish community were among those affected by the tragedy in Surfside, near Miami Beach, and Israel had vowed to help with the agonizing search and with the identification of victims.

 

[voiceofreason]

http://drudgereport.com/


150 STILL MISSING
BEACH BUILDING TURNS MASS GRAVE
QUESTIONS MOUNT
SKIRTED LOCAL CODES WITH PENTHOUSE
CONDO BOARD PREZ WARNED IN APRIL


https://news.yahoo.com/questions-mount-florida-building-could-150115820.html

Questions mount about how Florida building could have crumbled

Questions mounted Monday about how a residential building in the Miami area could have collapsed so quickly and violently last week, as the death toll rose to 11 with 150 still unaccounted for, leaving desperate families to fear the worst.

Experts are looking at possible pre-existing critical flaws in the structure of the apartment tower in Surfside, near Miami Beach, which pancaked into a pile of smoking rubble in the early hours of Thursday.

...

Many members of the local Jewish community were among those affected by the tragedy -- about half of Surfside's population is Jewish, including many members of the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement, according to Israeli media.


HERE COMES THE PUNCHLINE>>>ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE JEW IN THE WOODPILE


https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-...kirted-local-codes-with-penthouse-11624902548


Miami-Area Condo That Collapsed Skirted Local Codes With Penthouse
Initial plans called for 12 floors; additional floor added about 9 feet, putting the tower slightly above the town’s legal height ordinance at the time

June 28, 2021 1:49 pm ET

SURFSIDE, Fla.—The developers of the collapsed Surfside condominium tower worked around local building codes by adding a penthouse that wasn’t part of the original plan, a review of town building records shows.

Plans submitted by the developer of the Champlain Towers South initially called for 12 floors of residential units. The developer decided to add a penthouse, which increased the building’s height by about 9 feet with an additional floor. That put the tower slightly above the town’s legal height ordinance at the time.

The property owners built the penthouse after the Surfside town commission granted a special exemption to local height limits, according to a 1981 article in the Miami Herald. That allowed for these rooftop apartments at Champlain Towers South and a little later at Champlain Towers North, which was built around the same time.

It isn’t clear if the addition of a penthouse put undue stress on the south tower, though any possible irregularity related to the building is receiving new attention from local authorities and engineers after its sudden collapse.

The tower was built by a group of developers that included the late philanthropist Nathan Reiber.


I
I
I
V

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article1974626.html

Developer, philanthropist Nathan Reiber of Aventura dies at 86.

By Howard Cohen
July 08, 2014 06:25 PM, Updated February 16, 2015 12:19 PM

Most retirees to Miami Beach come to escape the cold winters and to enjoy the sun and fun.

Nathan Reiber’s retirement from a Canadian law career lasted about a week as he strolled West Avenue in Miami Beach in the late 1970s.

He spied a vacant lot near Lincoln Road, saw its potential years before the region’s revival, purchased it and built the first of many apartment buildings in Florida.

Reiber, who died July 1 in Aventura at 86, would spend the next 35 years as a developer. He built and managed real estate properties in the states and in Canada. Among them: the multiple Champlain Towers in Surfside, which he completed in 1986.

When he saw that vacant lot on Miami Beach, “that brought him out of retirement so quickly,” Meland said. “He was always fascinated by a deal.”

Reiber’s business sense, which also included developing the 99-unit Centennial Towers project on Collins in Surfside in the 1980s, helped him land on the boards of Mt. Sinai Hospital-Toronto, the YMHA and Miami Beach’s Temple Emanuel. He also supported the University of Miami, Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach and the Miami Jewish Health System. He was national executive vice president for the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs where he addressed NATO and met with world leaders from Spain, Hungary, Germany, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan.

His passion for the arts led him to become a benefactor of the Tanglewood Music Festival, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Berkshire Theater Festival.

In 1988, The Community Alliance Against AIDS hosted a $2,500-per-person fund-raiser for the AIDS fight with celebs like Elizabeth Taylor, Ed Asner, Roddy McDowall and Jerry Herman serving as co-hosts. Prominent locals including Reiber, Julio Iglesias, Abel Holtz, Joaquin Blaya and Mitchell Wolfson Jr. opened their homes for parties.


https://thecjn.ca/surfside-florida-condo-collapse-has-jewish-canadian-roots/

Florida condo collapse has Jewish Canadian roots
June 28, 2021

While search and rescue teams dig through the collapsed section of the Champlain Towers South condo building on Collins Avenue in Surfside, Fla., attention is being focused on the historic Canadian links to the area.

Generations of Canadians have vacationed in the communities of Surfside, Bal Harbour, Sunny Isles and many other locations along the Atlantic coast in and around Miami.

“I love all the Canadian Jews who are in the area, the part-timers,” said Jacob Solomon, the president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation in an interview. “I know that there are pockets of Miami-Dade country, and this is probably one of them, which are very popular for Canadians who are part-time residents in South Florida.”