Another 113 people remain unaccounted for since the building’s sudden collapse in the early morning hours two weeks ago, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Tuesday.
Of those 113 reports, “only around 70 of those are people we have been able to confirm were in fact in the building during the collapse.” She added that detectives continue to conduct interviews with friends and family to match up names, dates of birth and apartment numbers.
“We’re now at 100% full strength, full-on pulling everybody out of that rubble pile,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told CNN.
Tropical Storm Elsa has not hit Florida at full force yet, but the rain has begun falling. Despite the weather conditions, responders on site were seen putting on biohazard suits and continuing the search.
Rescue work was briefly paused over the weekend as preparations were made to demolish what was still standing of the building. Officials deemed the move necessary for the safety of rescue crews, particularly with forecasts of rain, wind and thunderstorms ahead this week.
Though the storm is expected to pass closer to the west coast of Florida, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Molleda said Surfside may still see hazardous conditions, including “heavy rain, localized flooding possible, and even the possibility of one or two tornadoes across South Florida.”
The storm may bring complications, but with the demolition of the remaining structure, the efforts are much safer, officials said.
“The worst thing that could have happened was to have a storm come in and blow that building down on top of the pile,” Burkett said.
That threat had prevented crews from accessing much of the collapse site, but now that work has resumed without the “looming danger,” Burkett said.
“It is encouraging to see how aggressively they are attacking the pile,” he said.
Demolition opens search areas but buries the belongings of residents
Officials credited Sunday night’s demolition with the ease, safety and speed with which crews are operating at the pile of rubble.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that teams on the ground are making “a lot of progress” and that while the demolition decision was not made by his office, he thought it was the “right thing to do” to help everyone move forward.
The danger was that the structure could fall onto the already existing rubble — or those working on it — with very little warning or control. Instead, Mayor Cava said Monday that crews were able to execute the demolition “exactly as planned.”
“Only dust landed on the existing pile,” she said.
“Truly, we could not continue without bringing this building down,” Cava said. “As we speak, the teams are working on that part of the pile that was not accessible before the building was demolished.”
In addition, more federal partners have arrived at the site to investigate why the building collapsed. Mayor Cava said the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the US Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation are sending staff.
“NIST, our federal partner, continues to work closely with the structural specialists, with detectives, and the fire rescue crews on site, as the evidence gathering process is well underway,” she said.
“They’re capturing all possible insights from the debris and all evidence is being properly tagged and logged.”
Given the “rough terrain of the pile,” LIDAR scanners are working so they can “better analyze the debris,” she said. “All this evidence will be critical to the NIST eventual fact-finding report.”
Officials have not given up hope of finding people alive
Feelings are more complicated for the residents who lived in the part of the building that was demolished: they were evacuated and then told it was unsafe to go in and get their belongings before the structure was destroyed.
Burkett said people around the world have raised millions of dollars to support those families, many of whom have been relocated to hotels. Officials have also asked them to catalog their personal items in hopes of recovering them from the debris and returning them.
“All of the politicians are focused on supporting the families and getting everybody out that rubble pile and reuniting them with their families,” Burkett told CNN’s Boris Sanchez. “It is really a beautiful thing. There is a lot of love here.”
Since returning to work after the demolition, rescue teams have recovered a number of additional bodies.
Two of the deceased have been identified as Ingrid Ainsworth, 66, and Tzvi Ainsworth, 68, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department. Six of the 32 victims killed in the incident remain unidentified.
The victims range in age from 4 to 92-years-old.
Despite the slim odds, officials are still holding out hope of finding people alive in the rubble.
“There’s no giving up hope,” Burkett said. “I think we’re all unified on that. We owe it to the families. We have a duty, unlimited resources — we’re going to make sure everybody gets out.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong title for Daniella Levine Cava. She is the mayor of Miami-Dade.
CNN’s Allison Flexner, Raja Razek, Kay Jones, Gregory Lemos and Rosa Flores contributed to this report.