Victims of Florida condo collapse to get at least $150 million, judge says
The families affected by the deadly condo collapse in South Florida will receive at least $150 million in compensation, a judge said Wednesday.
The initial payment would come from insurance on the building and the expected proceeds from an eventual sale of the Champlain Towers South property, where the 12-story building stood for 40 years before it crumbled last month — killing at least 97 people and destroying the belongings of more than 100 families.
Any survivors, visitors and the families of those who died will be eligible to receive a share of those funds, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman said at a hearing.
The sum does not include any money those families and survivors may receive from the growing pile of lawsuits filed since the June 24 disaster in the town of Surfside. The lawsuits are being consolidated into a single class-action case, Hanzman said.
“The court’s concern has always been the victims here,” he said. “Their rights will be protected.”
The judge has also appointed a receiver, attorney Michael Goldberg, to handle the condo association’s finances during the multi-agency investigation into the collapse. Goldberg told the court Wednesday that the property has been completely cleared of debris and that any piece of rubble considered as evidence has been sent to a Miami-area warehouse.
Attorneys and engineers hoping to look at the evidence will have to wait until the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is leading a federal review of the case, determines it is OK for them to do so, according to officials.
The hundreds of workers who combed through the massive pile of debris for weeks in search of victims and possible evidence removed more than 22 million pounds of concrete and debris from the site, authorities said.
“It may take years for their report to become public,” Goldberg said.
SEE IT: Here’s what Surfside looks like today, nearly 4 weeks after deadly collapse
The cause of the devastating collapse is still unclear, but the tower was said to have major structural problems and was undergoing a mandatory recertification process when half of the building came down.
Documents that emerged after the incident showed that an engineer warned condo owners in 2018 that he found serious damage to a slab of concrete beneath the pool and major “cracking” in the beams of the walls in the parking garage. The president of the condo’s board referred to those findings when she wrote a letter to residents in April to inform that the damage had “gotten significantly worse.”
Just over two months later, the oceanfront tower crashed to the ground in the middle of the night as many of the victims were likely sleeping.
As of Wednesday, 95 of the 97 bodies recovered so far have been identified. Several of them were children, with a 1-year-old baby among them.
Despite the many deaths and unprecedented tragedy, some residents want the tower to be rebuilt so they can move back in. But others say the property, which is worth about $100 million, should become a memorial to honor the victims or a combination of both.
“I personally would never set foot in a building. That’s a gravesite,” owner Raysa Rodriguez told the judge during the hearing. “I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of everyone who perished.”
Mayor Dan Gelber, of neighboring Miami Beach, has offered a tract of land in his city for a possible Surfside memorial.
The judge said all options are on the table and that any memorial would have to be paid for with taxpayers’ money, “not these particular victims.”
With News Wire Services
