Surfside: President Joe Biden on Thursday promised federal assistance and offered convenience for their families who were killed and lost in collapsing the Florida condo last week, due to temporary search and rescue operations suspended due to concerns about the stability of the remaining structures.
Biden, whose personal experience with the tragedy has marked his political career, traveled to Florida to repeat the role of the “consoler-in-chief” week after the 12-storey Champlain tower in the south partly gave up when the residents slept.
The death toll confirmed at the age of 18, after the discovery of six bodies in the ruins of the condominium, including two children, aged 4 and 105 lost and feared trapped in debris, hoping to find a survivor dimming.
with every day passed.
After arriving in Miami, Biden attended a briefing with local officials, including the Governor of Ron Desantis, who was widely seen as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024.
Biden, a Democrat, told them that he would give “whatever you need “And said he hoped.
The federal government will discuss full costs for regions and countries.
“We don’t go anywhere,” he said.
“It’s live or die.” After the briefing, Biden met firefighters and other first respondents who had searched for victims on the site.
“I just want to say: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you,” said Biden, who also appeared to refer to the people who saved his two sons from his first baby car and daughter in 1972.
Biden then met personally with several families of the victims in St.
Regis Hotel, not far from a collapsed condo, where he did a short comment before talking to every individual family, according to a senior white building official.
Desantis and other officials joined him.
Rescue efforts were paused by rescue workers on the site were ordered to stop after 2am on Thursday when the movement in debris raises concerns that the part of the building can still collapse, officials said.
“Search and rescue operations will continue immediately after safe to do it,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on the news briefing.
Officials said they were not sure when it would happen.
Authorities said they had not given up on surviving discovery.
But no one was withdrawn from the debris from the early disaster in the coastal city of Sea Surfside, adjacent to Miami Beach.
Head of Miami-Dade Fire Extinguisher, Alan Cominsky, said the savior did hear signs of life during their early efforts last week.
“They look for a woman’s voice, is what we hear for several hours,” he said.
“Finally, we didn’t hear his voice anymore.” Officials also keep the eye unite the tropical storm Elsa, which formed above the Atlantic and can reach South Florida on Monday, potentially inhibiting search operations.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent five search and urban rescue teams – each consisting of 80 members – to help sort out the rubble, White House spokesman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters one.
Desantis said workers have removed around 1,400 tons of material from the site collapsing.
Biden has delayed his visit to Florida to avoid disrupting rescue efforts.
Thursday’s trip was the second visit of Biden to the disaster site since he became president in January.
In February, he went to Texas after the winter storm left millions of people without strength or clean water for days and killed several people.
The investigator did not determine what caused almost half of the 40-year-old condo complex to be destroyed in one of the deadliest buildings that collapsed in US history.
But the 2018 report prepared by the Morabito consultant engineering company ahead of the construction safety certification process found structural deficiency in the 136 unit complex which is now the focus of investigation.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the majority of the Surfside condominium council, including his president, resigned in 2019, partly due to frustration for what was seen as a slow response to the report.