The Moskowitz Law Firm has released a voicemail recording of a woman’s unbearable moment when she realized the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside was collapsing.
Hey crew of dipshits commenting above, the survivors who were with her, the ones she saved at that moment, those are the people who I hope are safe. God damn Sally’s everywhere, know it all fucks.
@Iron Fist These are people in the part of the building that remained standing. As for you, you're an attention seeker using death to provoke. That's pathetic and I hope that people who know the victims don't see your comments. May the harm you want to inflict on others return to you instead.
@Iron Fist if you pay attention to videotape, you would know that those people survived, they were rescued from a balcony and helped others too. Apparently you have a 3 years old brain capacity
It probably will. It’s being eroded from underneath. It could become one huge sinkhole! Save lives now and just condemn all costal areas in the United States. No buildings within 100 miles of shoreline.
It was the building. It wasn't a sinkhole. It was structural water damage in the garage that caused the pool deck to cave in, which caused the building supports to give way.
America has a lot to learn from Japan. Watching all these construction workers working in the road in 3-digit heat is appalling! Japan makes them work overnight to fight heat and prevent service interruption. Meanwhile in the U.S. a building scaffold, and road work would be up and seemingly abandoned for up to 5 years or so. America is like a boss that wants the best but doesn't want to buckle down and invest accordingly.
@@TheHoth1 it was years and years of broken and leaky pipes dripping on and through the concrete forming cracks, eventually reaching the steel rebar inside the concrete and rusting it to the point of failure.
The people who own the condo units collectively own the building, and have a board of directors/homeowners association (HOA) that consists of condo owners who volunteer to oversee things and make decisions. They refused to approve the repairs because of the cost to each condo owner.
The repairs were brought to the owners of each condos attention in 2018. It was going to cost each owner approx. $150K to make the repairs, but they chose not to make them because of the expense. One owner even stated in an interview that "it would be like taking out a second mortgage on his condo." which he was not willing to do. So because of gree they all lost their lives.
Some people "hear a little voice" and some "get that gut feeling" listen to it and feel it and go with it. It's your deceased loved ones or your Guardian Angel that something is not right
Perhaps it’s the time to rethink building up on such unstable land that get pummeled by tornadoes on a regular basis!!! New building techniques and materials are necessary to move forward with this unpredictable landscape!🙏
All those buildings in Florida need to be checked and instead of 40 years try every year for the safety of the people. History will repeat itself if ignored and if money is so important to the owners and the HOA then maybe you live in there also. So if something happens then you all can feel the pain these people are going through.
getting buried alive has to be one of the worst ways of dying.... it truly hurts knowing that some of those unfortunate souls had to suffer a few hours and maybe days stuck underneath all those debris. I pray that they all Rest In Peace anyway... this building didn’t just fall on its own. some people out there KNEW that the collapse was a ticking time bomb and inevitable. FIND THEM, LOCK THEM UP.
Home Owner Associations, Condo Associations and School Boards should all be banned. They never listen to their constituents, and the end results are usually disastrous.
The problem with Florida condos is they are not legally required to keep contingency funds. This building only had $800,000 - a pittance for a 40 year old building. The HOA boards are made up of volunteers; sometimes they will have management companies to assist, but not always. The board must go to the owners of the building to vote on large expenditures, meaning convincing them it is in their own best interest to pay for repairs. There are always people who oppose; who will go as far as spreading misinformation to get what they want. How do I know this? I serve on a HOA in the US and one in Canada. The board probably battled for years to get enough owners to agree. It's easy to point fingers, but it is a whole lot more complicated than many of you think, and there are many more complicit in this building's demise - sadly some of the victims themselves may have been part of the problem.
Couldve taken them a million in building refurbishment- now they will pay multi multi multi multimillions in settlement money to all those affected. RIP to the deceased.
It's a mix of emotions so horribly sad but at the same time furious. This didn't have to happen. These family members and friends didn't have to die. People have to be held responsible.
They knew the building was coming Down. They allowed it to come down at early morning. Catching everyone sleeping. All these recorded messages is nothing more than fear. Now the remaining building will come down they are there setting up for that most likely at night like a thief in the night.
@@OberynTheRedViper numerous democrats have said on record "never let a crisis go to waste" or "never let a tragedy go to waste". My point is Republicans tend to lean towards address the situation at hand while dems tend to focus on the litigation that will take months or years before an investigation is even completed... Priorities am I right?
There was never a reason for this tragedy, other than greed by the owner and management. Truly horrifying. I have lived where they don't give a damn in WA state, and ended up with permanent asthma because of filthy sewer water leaking all over 3 separate times. And they had me clean it up.
Who's she going to sue, the residents are responsible for maintaining it and they will just pay the bill back to residents to pay do in effect she will sure herself while lawyers get rich. Better to make an insurance claim
Every family member dead or alive needs an attorney. There is tremendous loss here. Entire families have been wiped out. I personally know 2 people who are among the missing. No amount of money can bring them back. Their son only wants them found.
She’s a hero in my eyes, she didn’t want to leave a potentially dangerous situation before checking for other survivors, knowing the building could be a further threat to her life, god bless this astonishing lady.
When I heard that 80 year old Ada made it out my heart flooded with emotion. Her friend Mrs. Rodriquez is a hero and remained calm in a horrible, unimaginable horror.
Sue all these buildings over 20 yrs old in the sea water and sand and they will be evicting faster than these guys can run! She took photos 3 yrs prior and didnt move? Many buildings are like this. People need to get out!
WE do not know all of the facts yet. If the owners vetoed the assessment recommended by the condo association to do necessary repairs, the condo association is off the hook. It depends on what is in the organizing documents of the condominium and whether a majority of owners have veto power of condo board decisions. But yet, there are going to be tons of law suits and the litigation will drag out for years.
@@jannibal9273 Agree...and only ones getting money will likely be the lawyers. Curious to see if the residents approved the repairs by the condo association...I believe they did.
Oh she’s the one who raised hell about this. The building engineer said she was really mad then and now I don’t blame her. She should have sued them then!
i have read some many heart wrenching stories about the elderly in the building surviving miraculously but they’re not able to climb 8 flights of stairs to safety… one woman told a family that they should leave her since her knees started to hurt that she’s 88 and lived a full life but a man carried her on his shoulders and made sure everyone would survive.
@Anita M Could it be because alot of older people are on social security and a fixed income so they can’t afford it? Just trying to see it through their eyes lol. I know alot of the older people in my area are like that, but I’m in Southern Indiana so that may make it different lol.
What these people went through is so horrible. Glad she got herself an attorney! Someone will pay for all of this death and destruction - unfortunately it won't bring anyone back, but maybe it will put some fear in these landlords and H/O Associations to get repairs done when they need to be.
So true the fact that these landlords don’t care is sad it’s all about getting there money . They don’t care about the life of any human things like this could’ve been prevented so nobody shouldn’t have to through a lost in such a horrible way. 🙏
NO ONE will be paying for all that death and destruction. The management company and building owner(s) dumped all of their assets into protected holdings within hours of the collapse. They'll declare bankruptcy within weeks and walk away paying not a dime. They won't even serve any time. The insurance carrier, if there ever was any, will be left holding the bag for the losses incurred by the collapse and collateral damage to neighboring properties - but *NOT* on the hook for the loss of life. The guilty parties are already circling the wagons if they haven't split to non-extradition countries on their private planes already.
Its a true shame that the maintenance crews weren't able to do a better job at covering up these signs. Its what businesses pay them for. If they worked for me and lived, I would fire them all. Now this woman will be able to steal money from this franchise... So unfortunate...
@Drew T Not a renter, an "owner", but powerless concerning upkeep/repairs. It's much easier, though still difficult, to break a lease than 'disown' a condo, and who with a conscience could put a buyer into so dangerous a dwelling for personal gain?
God bless Ms. Rodriguez, from the start she was thinking about her neighbors! I was so happy to hear they made it out safely -- at first I thought this was a recording of a missing person -- but the horror of that night will be in their minds forever.
They did secure a $15M loan to have the repairs done. This loan was a 15 year loan and scheduled to be assessed against each owner. That's an assessment of over $110K per unit (136 units). I can see why some home owners fight these assessments, but this is a very good lesson learned. Safety has to be first. If you can't afford those kind of assessments, you really shouldn't be buying in this type of building. I imagine that the state is going to generate some serious legislature which will cause these types of buildings to be insanely expensive to live in. Sooooooo......I am guessing in the near future there will be a big fire sale of ocean front high rise condos.
Sandra….this is Florida, the state where most people don’t give a damn about anyone else. I’ve lived here for 25 years and I am doing everything I can to move out of this godforsaken state. I have never lived in a place quite like this before.
Too bad they didn’t have a structural engineer as a resident. If I was living in that building, being a structural engineer by profession, I would have documented these conditions and brought them before the city. If that didn’t work I’d proceed the litigation route. The HOA has a duty of care to its residents and failure to respond to such issues in a timely and methodical manner can be considered as gross negligence. I’ve done several structural inspections in my time and never have I come across a building in such a poor state - even the ones built in 1901. The rebar corrosion was just beyond acceptable. Water leaks everywhere. It’s like they didn’t even have a building maintenance team on payroll.
Heartbreaking that no one would listen to her or look at the photos she took. I cannot imagine her pain thinking that many lives could have been spared after she tried hard to warn the condo leaders of the deteriorating conditions.
Why is the HOA even allowed to vote on repairing a structural problem with the building. This isn't a question about what color paint to use or how often to do general upkeep. Clearly this was an engineering issue and someone with more authority should have stepped in. The inspector which I'm assuming is a licensed engineer pointed out several critical points of failure. Now it's up to a bunch of non-engineers to decide if it's worth fixing? Thats just crazy.
HOAs only exist to take your money. The only time they actually do care is if they can fine you for some asinine violation because eventually they can put a lean on your property and eventually own it. They don’t have to take care of the community pool, but if you have your own, they will fine something wrong with it.
I am wondering who will pay for it since almost everyone who was part of the HOA is dead. And I don’t think they should be the one to blame at all. I think everyone here is guilty.
She cared about everyone by taking those videos 3 years ago, at the end she was saved but all her friends aren't there anymore. So sad and horrific on the part of building management who should pay every penny for the damages. Praying for everyone
@Anita M when the records, and there ARE records, of ALL the HOA meetings get made public everyone is going to see how this happened IF it was neglected building repairs. Know someone with a condo in Deerfield Beach where the Mang Co called for “special assessment” of $7500/$9000 per resident to replace the 40 year old elevator that parts were becoming obsolete. The homeowners kept voting it down. Elevator failed and inspection by county condemned it. Residents “enjoyed” steps for 6 months and ended up paying 10-12k each to speed up the replacement. Obviously, this collapse is MUCH worse. But I have a horrible feeling the residents might have screwed themselves unfortunately.
The issue was with the board of directors. One of the missing women worked for the hoa and it was her emails that brought that to light. The owners couldn’t do anything, unless the hoa approved
Its a problem with strata building cause owners dosent want to cough up with the money especially with a major repair like this one. I head from the news that it cost upward of $100,000.00 for each unit depends on the size!
@@ksli57 This was a luxury condo located near the water...from what I read, the units in that building cost approx $700K and upwards to around $1.7M. Even poor working-class people do not deserve to live in a property that isn't properly maintained, let alone upper-middle class people who live in this condo spending that type of money.
@@ktg8670 The condo owners need to vote on the any major repairs/expenses. If it got rejected, nothing the strata counsel can do except to go to court and force the owners to come up with the money. So the owners are partly to blame for this incident!
@@ksli57 I haven't read anything that has stated residents rejected serious repairs. It would be interesting to learn if they had in fact done that. Personally, I couldn't imagine someone being willing to spend $1M on property where they not only live, but keep their cherished material possessions as well...but not wanting to have serious repairs done in order to be safely maintained, especially given the yearly hurricane season that area experiences. We shall see, as more info I'm sure will surface about this property.
Lots of people saw it and knew there was a problem, but I’m sure no one imagined in their wildest dreams that the whole building would collapse like that! It’s a terrible tragedy, but now that we know, they are inspecting other buildings that look like they may have the same problems, and have even evacuated at least one other building.
You will be surprised. I stayed in a B&B in Penang Malaysia with such delapidation. I meant to write about it in airB&B but once I left it drifted out of my mind. I was on floor 12. This came as a jolt.
I've worked for an apartment company before... They are all so cheap. They will say something that needs to be repaired isn't on the budget. Then when it comes down to fixing something, they get 3 bids and always goes with the cheapest. The fact that it took longer than 3 years for some type of action is wild. This building been jacked up for many moons prior. We can tell from the video. That doesn't just happen overnight
yes, the former building maintenance manager said that the pumps in the basement near the pool area had to be replaced every 2 years because there was constant flooding. He said that he raised this issue but was just told that pumps would be replaced...he said he wondered what happened to all of that water seeping into the concrete...it was probably eroding the foundation over years.
@@ljkoch The irony of this is that it wasn't the pool pump area that caused the collapse of this building. This collapse happened away from the pool closer to the building.
@@dexterm1285 part of the "pool deck" collapsed but the pool and the hot tub area did not collapse. At beginning of this video you can clearly see the pool and hot tub still intact and not collapsed with the rest of the deck. This collapse more than likely started closer to the building where the planters were situated. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Wzd4jqgZk6U.html
@@sarahdeshay1394 Oh here you are again, troll. Still haven't been able to muster up enough basic decency to stop trolling kind hearted strangers online, eh? No surprise there. Go home, Sarah. No one asked for your nasty, mean spirited input. Trolling is also the devil's work. Special place in hell for those. 🙄
Life is great people. Did you not see that there are survivors and neighbors helping each other. See the good and quit crying over the ugly. To be better is to make it better.
This is why big business is rushing to take over homes and condominiums ,all they have to do is collect the money every month and do the bare minimum. And when they do have to renovate and fork out some money, they make sure the tenants feel it too.
Your statement is not accurate. Each of the condos was individually owned by each "tenant." In 2018 it was determined that muli-millions of dollars in repairs were needed with each individual owners responsible to share a portion of the costs. They decided NOT to make the repairs because most did not want to come up with the money. So, in a sense each individual owner was somewhat responsible for their own deaths. It was more like individual greed rather than corporate corruption or negligence.
@@user-jy1bc3gw2q Read my above comment, big business had nothing to do with it. It was each individual condo owner who refused to pay for the repairs.
@@mikehenry4743 Yes I know that. I was responding to his statement about big businesses in particular. My statement still stands. Regulations are needed straight across every industry to prevent people from getting killed. It should be mandatory that properties (especially those that are structurally attached to other properties) are routinely inspected regardless of who owns them. It shouldn't be "the owner's responsibility", it should be happening irregardless of the owner's desires. When your choices take away someone else's, that's not freedom nor is it anyone's right.
These are the kinds of tragedies that happen when there are little or lax regulations to protect the consumer. I know people bitch about regulation, but some are meant to protect us and not the corporation.
@Nicky L Oh. A mythical, efficient and effective government that has never existed. When in front of your eyes you have an example of how well government actually functions.
That's homeowner's for you. Sorry meant to say homeowners associations. They want that money every month but they sure don't want to spend it where it belongs. God bless that woman. May God help heal all the families. May they know there's people out here that are sending them love love love love love.
If they even can get rainwater they have chance for survive. But seeing this tall building panckaked so tiny..... i dont see there is too much air pocket to be able to form.😔
@@sarahdeshay1394 Wow you are a horrible person. All of your comments on here are nothing but disrespectful, nasty, pointless trolls aimed at kind, loving comments. What a waste of space you must be to troll sad people online who are praying for others. Does it really make you feel good to behave like this? Good Lord, who raised you? Or are you actually 10 years old? I can see why you don't have anything positive to do, but do the world a favor and just leave people alone. TLDR? Internet trolls are the absolute dregs of society. Go home, Sarah. You're done.
Pray for unbelievers they are spiritually blind and cannot understand the things of God. We were all blind once until we had an experience with Jesus so pray for those who don't believe the devil has them blind from the truth
I always tell my husband I want a townhome and he says how are we going to go up the stairs when we're old. Now I get it. I'm so hurt for this people and thank you Raiza for helping your neighbors. That could have been my grandmother.
80 year old should not be on that high of floor level keep this in mind when u get older even at a hotel you want to stay as low as possible in case of evacuation
Jesus, I’ve never seen that many fire trucks and ambulances in one place since 9/11, not even for other mass casualties. This just kind of shows you how major this is. An entire building FULL of people collapsing is not something that *just happens* with no warning.
I’m guessing they’re gonna take this seriously now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start checking every building in the area now. Especially those built by the same contractor.
Speaking of that, there was actually another building in the area that was found to be structurally and electrically unsafe and all residents were ordered to evacuate.
The condo is a limited liability company and the extent of its assets is the property itself the city has already condemned it to come down so the only thing left of value will be the land, between that and the insurance everybody's going to get about $100,000 each -- less than the value of the apartment.
There will be not a cent left for either the familes of survivors or of the dead people. Not a cent. Condos are a nice concept- provided they are well administered with a Reserve and Contingency Funds. That means condo fees and special fees and a schedule of repairs and inspections every year. Condo Board are populated with volonteers and amateurs. No wonder mess is all around.
When considering the KNOWN condition of the building... who in the actual F were paying half a million dollars for a one bedroom condo here? 2 bedrooms were 7-900k, 3 bedrooms were going for over $1.5 million...just WOW!
Many people probably lived there for years when it was much cheaper and in better condition. You don’t expect a building to just collapse like that, even if it is run down.
The condo owners next to this building paid the same if not more because of the beautiful view. Now their view is of death and destruction. That million dollar condo unit next door just got a little cheaper.
National guard would only have gotten in the way and hurt themselves and others. This is a job for specialized rescue teams. The Israeli rescue team was requested by some of the families who are Jewish.
Well most of the condos there were expensive places...anywhere from 700k- 1 million. To get out the person would have had to sell their condo to someone else. Selling a condo that expensive in a failing building would probably have been quite difficult. Most of those people probably couldn't afford to just pick up and move. Real estate in that area of the country is also quite expensive and hard to find. I once searched for a month for a property in FL to buy and was unable to find anything. So there are a lot of complications. Besides, I doubt they thought the building would come down. They saw neglect and some problems, but that's different than thinking the entire building would fall.
Easy to say in hindsight. Even during 9/11 no one expected both towers to fall and collapse in on themselves as they did. Even as a 3 year old I remember the news reports. It’s a day that never ever leaves you.
Our bridges and roads are amongst the best in the world. Ask anyone who has been traveling abroad … and these apartments were stunning apartments owned by the people who died in them.. the condo association were comprised of owners and the residents didn’t want to pay for the extensive repairs needed. This is due to bad maintenance by the very people who died
You are an idiot. This was not a slum. These are rich people who owned these CONDOS these were not apts. for rent. In all likelihood these condo residents complained about the HOA fees and were at least partly to blame for this tragedy. But of course they will now come into millions with their lawsuits.
I really hope that there is more evidence on the video of deteriorating columns and not rusting electrical boxes. God bless the people that died in this tragedy and their families.
Omg loosing close friends is so heart breaking and she was there and they were just gone. So glad her family got out alive but she lost her close friends and had to go through this. I heard ppl tried to sue them. Hope this time it finally gets done. Enough is enough.
If it had been a man that took the pictures and complained, someone may have listened. I feel for this woman. I know how it feels when not taken seriously and placated. "Oh, thank you honey, for letting us know. We'll be sure to look into it." Yeah, right. Thanks for nothing.
So sad 😪 It must have been horrible I can not even imagine Going through what they experienced hopes and prayers Is for all affected by this horrific tragedy🙏
