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A contractor photographed corroding rebar and cracked concrete in the parking garage of the Champlain Towers South complex on Tuesday, just 36 hours before the building collapsed, killing at least 11 people and just two months after the building's residents were told the damage was 'accelerating'. 

The contractor, who has not been named, had been asked to survey the damage in the pool equipment room, which was in the southside of the underground parking garage, beneath the pool deck.  He was putting together a bid to redo the pool and the pool equipment room but was struck by the damage, which he photographed. 

He told The Miami Herald afterwards: 'There was standing water all over the parking garage...I thought to myself, that’s not normal.' 

The damage had been identified in a 2018 report by engineer Frank Morabito. He found that there was a 'major error' in the building's construction which meant the pool was leaking onto the concrete slabs below. 

In April, the condo board - which had been deliberating the repairs for two years, trying to come up with the money for them and organizing a committee to oversee them -  sent a letter to residents telling them the damage was 'significantly worse' and 'accelerating'.  

'Please note that the original scope of work in the 2018 report has expanded. The concrete deterioration is accelerating. The roof situation got much worse, so extensive roof repairs had to be incorporated. When you can visually see the concrete spalling (cracking), that means that the rebar holding it together is rusting and deteriorating beneath the surface. 

'The concrete deterioration is accelerating. The roof situation got much worse, so extensive roof repairs had to be incorporated.  Indeed the observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse since the initial inspection,' board president Jean Wodnicki said. 

In that letter, she said they were still trying to finalize a loan from Valley bank to pay for the repairs (they tried to get a loan first from Banco Popular but the deal fell through) and that the total cost was more than $16million and the board had just $707,000 in cash reserves, leaving them with a bill for around $15million. 

The owners of the building's 136 units would be responsible for repaying it and each was on the hook for a different amount depending on how big their unit was. 

President Biden and the First Lady will visit the site on Thursday. 

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Photos taken on Tuesday in the pool equipment room at Champlain Towers South, which is located in the basement parking garage, show extensive concrete spalling and corroded rebar. A contractor took these photos and noticed that in the actual parking garage, there were puddles of water which were in the direct spot beneath the leaking pool deck

The contractor photographed the pool deck which looked normal above ground but according to a 2018 report, was causing water to form on the lower level because it was leaking

They were given until July 1 to decide if they were going to pay for it all up front or in monthly installments over 15 years.  

A one-bedroom apartment owner, for example, was given a bill for $80,000 but someone in a four-bedroom penthouse was asked to fork out $336,000, residents told CNN. 

Some of the owners were elderly couples who'd bought their property to retire. They said the bill came as a surprise. 

Three survivors have now filed lawsuits against the condo board. 

The first was less than a day after the collapse and it sought $5million in damages. It was filed by  

It's unclear why the board didn't tell the residents about the damage in 2018 or ask them to pay for it then. 

'A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by but this is where we are now,' Wodnicki wrote in her letter. There are many moving parts to this project. 

'We have covered so much ground already to get the project rolling, it’s not surprising everyone is still asking about those items. Everything reviewed in this letter has been publicly presented, discussed, and voted on as necessary. 

'We have discussed, debated, and argued for years now, and will continue to do so for years to come as different items come into play,' she said. 

'We struggled with it and everything,' Isabel Aguero, who lives on the 11th floor with her husband and who is retired, told CNN. 

Her son Alberto was visiting. He said he was angry when he found out the condo board knew about the necessary repairs in 2018 but hadn't started them yet. 

'I was pretty angry at that point, angry that innocent lives had to be lost.'  

Wodnicki, in her letter, admitted that some of the repairs could have been done earlier but 'this is where we are now', she said.  

In the time between the first recommendation for repairs in 2018 and 2020, the cost of them jumped by around $3million because the damage had worsened. 

'It is impossible to know the extent of the damage to the underlying rebar until the concrete is opened up. Oftentimes the damage is more extensive than can be determined by inspection of the surface. 

Wodnicki concluded: 'A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now. 

'We have discussed, debated, and argued for years now, and will continue to do so for years to come as different items come into play.' 

On Tuesday, a third class action lawsuit was filed against the condo board, blaming them for the collapse.  

This is a breakdown of the repairs that were needed to Champlain Towers South and how much they were going to cost residents. The  most expensive item was a $4million facade, balcony and railing repair. Residents questioned much of the breakdown 

The condo board only had $707,003 in cash from homeowners fees to pay for the repairs so it left a huge sum - $15.5million - that suddenly had to be covered. The board was in the process of securing a loan from the bank Valley to pay for it, and they were asking residents to repay them either in lump sums or over 15 years, in monthly payments, to pay it back. The first loan they'd tried to secure from Banco Popular fell through but they were trying to finalize it for months, the letter reveals 

Wodnicki, the board president, wrote that 'a lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by but this is where we are now'. There is no requirement to undergo repairs or reviews periodically aside from the 40-year recertification process and that is only in Miami Dade County, not the whole of Florida 

Among the repairs listed was $722,077 on 'hallway repairs' that the residents questioned because it was so expensive. The 'hallway project' was in the works before the 2018 report shed light on other repairs that were needed

This is how bad the damage was in 2018, and since then it had become 'significantly worse'. The board warned residents in April this year that it was 'still accelerating' and that there was no telling how it actually was without ripping some of the building up 

Exposed portions of the building show a children's bedroom on the top floor of the building that was partially damaged alongside other parts that were ripped off. It's unclear if anyone was in these bedrooms when the building collapsed. 150 people remain missing - 11 are confirmed dead 

Crews work in the rubble Champlain Towers South condo, Tuesday, June 29, 2021, in Surfside, Fla. Many people were still unaccounted for after Thursday's fatal collapse 

Early morning scenes from Surfside where the Champlain Towers rescue efforts continue on Tuesday 

Part of the damaged building on Tuesday morning as rescue team continued to work at the site looking for survivors 

Men's shirts and women's heels are among the rubble of the site on Tuesday morning. Crews are still working to find any survivors six days after the collapse

Suitcases and other household items are scattered among collapsed wall and ceiling. Rescue teams have so far only found one person alive in the wreckage 

Another view of the children's bunkbeds at the top of the building which was also damaged 

Tributes on the beach next to the collapsed condo on Tuesday morning. There are fears for the two that are next to it and were built by the same developer

Search and rescue teams at dawn on Tuesday morning after working through the night to try to find survivors 

The building from the water on Tuesday as search and rescue teams used cranes to try to find survivors. Only one part of the building remains in tact 

This is the scale of the debris, shown overnight as search and rescue teams used cranes to sift through the rubble 

The bottom center of the building was the first to collapse at around 1.30am on Thursday morning. The bottom gave out and then the other parts of the building followed seconds later

The rear of the center column was second to collapse, just a few seconds after the front of it crumbled from the bottom

The last part of the building to fall was the eastern section. From beginning to end, the collapse lasted 10 seconds 

The collapse began at 1.30am and was over in less than ten seconds. It started in the center front portion, next to the pool, in the basement or the parking garage where an engineer had identified spalled concrete columns. Next, the hind portion of that middle section fell, before the east section collapsed 

The condo board has been mostly quiet since the collapse.  It is now facing three separate lawsuits from survivors who say they should have known the building was about to collapse.  

PRESIDENT BIDEN AND FIRST LADY JILL WILL VISIT MIAMI CONDO COLLAPSE

President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden will visit Miami on Thursday. 

The Bidens will likely meet with first responders and family members of victims of the disaster.

Biden previewed the trip as he departed the White House Tuesday morning for Wisconsin, with the White House making it official moments later.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the 12-story Champlain Towers South beachfront building crumbled to the ground. There are now 11 confirmed fatalities, with two bodies discovered on Monday. Around 150 people are still missing.

Biden pledged federal support almost immediately and was in touch with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, first calling him Friday afternoon.

The president approved an emergency declaration for Miami-Dade County, which authorizes FEMA to coordinate disaster relief efforts. FEMA- supported rescue teams were sent to the site.

DeSantis, a Republican and ally of former President Donald Trump, was in Surfside Monday for a press conference and talked about the federal investigation into the collapse. 

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One of the board members -  Nancy Kress Levin - is missing. Her son Frank Kleiman, 50, also lived in the building and died along with his wife Ana and his stepson, Luiz, who was disabled. Nancy's other adult son Jay was visiting for a funeral and he is missing. 

A lawyer for the board, Donna DiMaggio Berger, told DailyMail.com it's not fair to lay the blame for the collapse with the seven volunteers who served on it, and said they have lost just as much as anyone else involved. 

'There's too much murkiness here. It's easy to take a hands off approach but I don't think putting those kind of burdens on volunteer board members who are just living in the building like everybody else...' she said on Friday.   

She added that a 'perfect storm' led to the delays. 'I know there were concrete repairs that needed to take place which is very typical for a coastal property. 

'The concrete work was out to bid. In Florida, boards are required to get competitive bids.

'That was still outstanding and those are still coming in they don't have a sufficient number of bids yet on that work... one of the other problems we have here is one we're in hurricane season, we have to get competitive bids, we now have a bunch of older high rises that are racing to comply with the deadline to install engineered life safety systems.

'They're looking for engineers right now to install sprinklers, the deadline is the end of 2023. 

'We really do have a perfect storm going on right now,' she said.

Morabito, the engineer hired to review the building in 2018 and again in 2019, on Monday released a statement saying he recommended the changes three years ago to the condo association. 

The cost of the repairs he suggested was $12million, which would have had to have been paid for with money raised through condo fees. 

'Morabito Consultants was retained in 2018 by the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association to prepare the 40-year-old recertification of the condo building. 

'We completed our inspection and provided our report to the condo association on October 8, 2018, detailing our findings and recommendations.

'We provided the condo association with an estimate of the probable costs to make the extensive and necessary repairs. 

'Among other things, our report detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete, which required repairs to ensure safety of the residents and public. 

Also on Monday, it emerged that a penthouse was added to the building plans after they were initially submitted.

The plans for the 1981 building proposed 12 floors of residential units. The developer decided to add a penthouse, which increased the building's height by about nine feet with an additional floor. 

The penthouse made the tower slightly above the town's legal height ordinance at the time, but the Surfside town commission granted a special exemption to local height limits.

It was too early to say whether the penthouse would have affected the building structurally, and investigators will be probing all aspects of its construction and design.

Manuel Jurado, an engineer who worked on the Champlain Towers South project, told The Wall Street Journal he was skeptical of criticisms over the design and engineering work.

'If there was a major error, it would have surfaced within a year or two,' he said. 

'There were no problems that presented themselves' in the design process, he said, and the project unfolded smoothly. 

It has now emerged that the collapse began in the bottom of the building and brought the rest of it down with it in a 'domino effect'. 

A twilight vigil was held on Monday evening for those still trapped in the building

FEARS FOR 2 SISTER TOWERS WHERE THERE'S SIMILAR DAMAGE 

Residents in the sister towers of the Miami condo building that collapsed last week are terrified their homes may crumble too because they have similar concrete damage in their parking garages to what experts have said may have brought the first building down.

Yards away from the collapsed tower is Champlain Towers East and Champlain Towers North, two almost identical buildings where people are still in their homes. 

Aerial view of Champlain Towers South (collapsed), Champlain Towers East and Champlain Towers North. Residents have now been offered the chance to voluntarily evacuate the North and East buildings ahead of detailed safety inspections

They have not been evacuated yet despite neighbors identifying damage in the parking garage that is similar to the kind of concrete spalling in the South tower.  

On Monday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett didn't order those residents to leave their homes but he issued a grave warning. He said he wouldn't feel safe spending just one night in the buildings.

'I am afraid that there could be some issue in our building that will result in what we saw in Champlain Towers South,' said Champlain Towers East resident Robert Lisma

Robert Lisman spoke to local news outlets after spotting the huge chunk of concrete gouged out of the column of nearby Champlain Towers East, where he lives. 

A rusted metal 'rebar' - used to reinforce concrete used in construction - was visible as a result of the damage, likely caused by sea air getting into the column and rusting the steel. 

Despite noting the damage, he said he isn't leaving and is confident the building is safe. 

'I am afraid that there could be some issue in our building that will result in what we saw in Champlain Towers South.' 

'I have concerns, but I'm not panicking. I know that there are things we need to address and look at, but there's no imminent threat,' he told NBC. 

Lisman added that he was 'confident' that Champlain Towers East was still structurally safe, but said of planners and engineers now inspecting local properties: 'Their decisions have life and death consequences. And so when I'm told there's nothing to worry about, it's trust but verify.'  

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Officials won't yet comment on what exactly brought the 40-year-old tower down but experts who have viewed footage of it say it started with a problem in the bottom of the building - perhaps the parking garage - and once that crumbled, huge swathes of the building came down with it.  

Some experts say it could have been the result of eroded columns collapsing under the weight the building. 

The cause of the erosion could have been spalling, which occurs when salt air gets into the column and rusts the steel inside. 

The only work that was underway was on the roof but officials say that did not contribute to the collapse. 

'There was no inordinate amount of equipment or materials or anything on that roof that caught my building official's eye that would make it alarming as to this place collapsing,' Surfside's building official James 'Jim' McGuinness said, adding that the cause of the collapse remains under investigation.   

A lawyer for the board who last week told DailyMail.com that it was unfair to lay the blame with the volunteers did not respond to requests on Monday afternoon. 

Meanwhile, engineering and construction experts who have studied video of the collapse say it indicates the columns in the parking garage buckled, and triggered a 'domino effect' catastrophe.   

'When caustic salt air works its way in though and rusts out the steel, the structural bearing capacity of the column is compromised. 

'That can set off a chain reaction of failures which then leads to beams, slabs and other things, and you have a domino effect of collapse. 

'The idea behind is that it failed in the middle from the columns up - that is what that video is showing. 

It's indicative of potentially the columns towards the middle being structurally compromised and potentially, underground the piles and the way in which they are embedded into the bedrock might have been compromised. 

'There was a structural failure... I'm not so keen to commit to why, when, where and how it failed but this is certainly something worth considering.

'The video is compelling,' Gregg Schlesinger, a general contractor and construction lawyer, told DailyMail.com on Monday. 

'We've seen a 2018 report that says it had rusted out. 

'That is typically the effect of salt air and erosion. 

'If a building isn't maintained over this time period and is allowed to get to the point where you have spalling, what should have been done in 2018 is at least an additional exploration demo work, you demo a small area, the single column that's in the picture to reveal the level. It wasn't done. 

'If proper maintenance occurred it would never have gotten to this point.

'They put it off and they were getting ready to do it 3 years later... it's unacceptable,' he added. 

Seconds before the building collapsed, model Cassondra Billedeau-Stratton woke up to the building shaking. 

She called her husband and told him she could see what looked like a sinkhole forming next to the pool. 

Moments later, the line went dead. 

Her husband has since said he'll 'never forget' that she called at exactly 1.30am. He was out of town.  

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said on Monday morning that the cause of the collapse was secondary to the rescue mission. 

'There's been some discussion about why this happened, that's an issue for another day. 

Right now we have to pull our family and friends out of that rubble.' 

'He will get to the bottom of it,' he said.  

'We continue to work the pile, we have over 80 rescuers at a time that are beaching the walls in a frantic effort to rescue those that are still viable and to get to those voids that we know exist in these buildings.'

Frank Morabito, the engineer who was hired by the condo board in 2018, released a statement on Monday to insist he did warn the condo board of cracks in the building but that nothing was done

CONDO BOARD SAYS 'PERFECT STORM' LED TO REPAIR DELAYS

Nancy Kress Levin is still missing. She is one of the seven volunteers who serves on the condo association board. Nancy's 50-year-old son Frank Kleiman is among the dead. He lived in the building with his wife, Ana, and Ana's 26-year-old disabled son, both of whom are also dead. Her other son Jay was visiting for a funeral. He is missing

The condo board at Champlain Towers South that was tasked with organizing repairs was made up of just seven volunteer residents, one of whom is a Cuban immigrant grandmother who remains missing. 

The board were all volunteers who agreed to serve before the building collapsed on Thursday at 1.30am. It's unclear if they got any form of payment for it. 

They were in charge of recertifying the building, handling maintenance, and all other repairs. In 2018, they hired the engineer who produced a report detailing the repairs and they were in the process of trying to get loans to pay for the work and hire teams to actually do it when the building collapsed. 

Nancy Kress Levin was one of the board members. She is among the people who remain missing in the rubble. 

The other six made it out alive and are in a house together. Their lawyer Donna DiMaggio Berger told DailyMail.com they are 'just as devastated' as anyone else. 

'They are devastated. The tears have not stopped. There's shock, disbelief, grief. This was a close knit community,' Berger said. 

She also revealed that they hadn't secured a condo board hadn't yet secured a team to do the concrete repairs on the building that were required because there was a shortage in the number of available contractors thanks to other Miami buildings racing to update their sprinkler systems, a lawyer said. 

Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer for the board, told DailyMail.com that they were also racing against hurricane season which would hinder any work.

'I know there were concrete repairs that needed to take place which is very typical for a coastal property. The concrete work was out to bid. In Florida, boards are required to get competitive bids.

'That was still outstanding and those are still coming in they don't have a sufficient number of bids yet on that work... one of the other problems we have here is one we're in hurricane season, we have to get competitive bids, we now have a bunch of older high rises that are racing to comply with the deadline to install engineered life safety systems.

'They're looking for engineers right now to install sprinklers, the deadline is the end of 2023. We really do have a perfect storm going on right now,' she said. 

She also suggested it wasn't fair to blame the condo board - a volunteer group of seven residents - for the collapse. 

'There's entirely too much murkiness here. It's easy to take hands off approach but I don't think putting those kind of burdens on the shoulder of volunteer board members - people who are just living in the building like everybody else - who have stepped up and said OK I'll serve on the board...' she tailed off.  

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The mayor continued: 'We have found voids within the building that we've been able to penetrate - mostly coming from underneath on what used to be the garage. We have been able to tunnel through the building.

'This is a frantic search to see that miracle, who we can bring out of that building alive. we are all holding out for that hope that we are going to be able to rescue somebody. The pile conditions are bad, obviously. 

'During the day, we've got the sun and humidity... it rains. The conditions are not ideal but nonetheless we are working tirelessly to try to bring victims that are underneath that rubble, to rescue them.

'We have the latest technology in terms of equipment- underground sonar systems to detect victims, we brought in huge cranes to help us lift big slabs of concrete that we didn't have at the beginning, basically turning the big pieces of rock into smaller rocks to get them off the pile.

'We're doing big lifts, getting big pieces off of the pile and that's going to aide us to laminate this building almost like an onion so we can get inside and again find those voids that we know might possibly be there and rescue those people,' he said.   

Maggie Castro, a paramedic with the Miami-Dade county fire department, said: 'I know the families ask why we are not going faster.'

Castro, a 52-year-old rescue specialist who has been with the department for 17 years, said that in a strange way it is hope itself, even now, that is slowing them down.

'We have the potential for having void spaces, these pockets that can potentially be in the rubble where we can find live victims,' she told AFP.

'If we just jump on these piles and attack, we will collapse these spaces.It seems slow but it's as fast as we can go. Heavy machinery cut large pieces and remove the ones that are safe to be removed.  

'When we come to an area where there would potentially be a void space, we work by hand, remove debris bucket by bucket until we get to the area we want to.' With listening devices and sniffer dogs they strain for any sound that could lead them to life.

'We hear falling debris, twisting metal,' Castro said. We have not heard human sounds.'

One of the main people who was allegedly involved in the construction of the building in 1981 was developer Nathan Reiber, who faced legal troubles in the 1970s in Canada, before turning his attention to south Florida.

According to a Washington Post report, Reiber and his partners couldn't start construction of the now-collapsed tower because of 1979 moratorium, which was put in place because of faulty sewers in the area.

But they skirted around the moratorium and got their project approved by agreeing to pay half of the $400,000 tab for sewer repairs on the property. 

This angered other developers whose projects were stalled by the moratorium and led to accusations that Reiber and his team received preferential treatment, the Washington Post report reported.

Reiber, who died of cancer in 2014, demanded that the campaign donations be returned when allegations of their pay-to-play scheme surfaced.

Reiber's widow and two of his children did not return calls to the Washington Post. 

In light of the tragedy, the City of Miami sent letters to condo associations of 40-plus-year-old buildings above six stories, urging them to get an inspection from a qualified structural engineer. 

The City of Miami said that the reports must be carried out within the next 45 days and sent back a status report on the conditions.

THE MIAMI CONDO COLLAPSE VICTIMS IDENTIFIED SO FAR

54-year-old Stacie Fang

STACIE DAWN FANG

Stacie Dawn Fang, 54, was with her son Jonah Handler, a teenager, when the building collapsed. They lived on the tenth floor. The boy's small hand waved through the wreckage as a man out walking his dog hurried to the site, climbed through a pile of glass and rebar and promised to get help right away.

Rescuers helped the boy out from under a pile of cement and carried him away on a stretcher to a hospital.

'There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie,' members of her family said in a statement. 'Many heartfelt words of encouragement and love have served as a much needed source of strength during this devastating time.'

Asked about the boy's condition, a family friend, Lisa Mozloom told the AP 'He will be fine. He's a miracle.'

MANUEL LAFONT

Manuel LaFont, 54

Manuel LaFont, 54, was a proud father, a baseball fan and a business consultant who lived on the building's eighth floor. 

He had a 10-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter with his ex-wife Adriana LaFont, the Miami Herald reported.

Adriana asked her friends on Facebook to pray the rosary for Manny before his body was found. 'So many memories inside the walls that are no more today, forever engraved experiences in the heart,' she wrote.

LaFont, a Houston native, coached his son's baseball team, the Astros, at North Shore Park, just a mile away from the Champlain. He was a parishioner at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Miami Beach. The parish's school parents gathered Saturday afternoon to pray for LaFont and his neighbors who were still missing.

An alumnus of Sharpstown High School in Houston, LaFont had worked across Latin America and the Caribbean for a manufacturing firm, leading a division focusing on roadway safety that built crash cushions and moveable barriers, the Herald reported.

'I got into this industry specifically because I don't want to sell widgets. I want to help people. I want to do something good in this world,' he said at an industry conference in 2016. 'When I die, I want to say that my life meant something.'

ANTONIO AND GLADYS LOZANO

Antonio and Gladys Lozano

Antonio and Gladys Lozano lived on the ninth floor. The two had known each other over 60 years and would have celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary on July 21.

Their sons told WPLG-TV that the couple had joked neither wanted to die before the other, because neither wanted to live without the other. Their one solace, the brothers said, was that they were together when they died.

Authorities confirmed on Saturday that Antonio, 83, and Gladys, 79, were among the dead.

Sergio Lozano said he had dinner with his parents hours before the collapse. He lived in one of the towers of the complex and could see his parents' apartment across the way from his. That night, he said the heard a loud noise they thought could be a storm.

'The building is not there,' he said he told his wife. 'My parents' apartment is not there. It's gone.'

ANA ORTIZ, HER HUSBAND FRANK AND HER SON LUIZ 

Ana Ortiz, left, and her son Luis Bermudez and Leon Oliwkowicz and his wife Christina (right) 

Luis Bermudez, of San Juan, Puerto Rico, had battled with muscular dystrophy for years and used a wheelchair. The 26-year-old man lived with his mother Ana Ortiz on the seventh floor of the Champlain Towers South.  

His father, also named Luis Bermudez, texted the AP saying 'my son is a hero.' He also wrote on Facebook that he could not believe he's gone.

'Now rest in peace and without any obstacles in heaven,' he wrote. 'I will see you soon my Luiyo.'

Ortiz, 46, had just gotten married with Frankie Kleiman. Alex Garcia, the couple's close friend, told The Miami Herald he had set them up on a blind date. Kleiman lived with his wife and stepson on the same floor as his brother Jay Kleiman, who was in town for a funeral, and their mother Nancy Kress Levin. The Kleimans and their mother are still missing.

50-year-old Frank Kleiman, left, was found on Monday. He was Ana's husband

Ortiz was described as a woman who was committed to giving her son the best possible life.

'She´s a rock star. And gorgeous," Garcia told the Herald. "And on top of that a super mom.

FRANK KLEIMAN 

Kleiman, 50, was the husband of Ana Ortiz, whose body was found alongside that of her disabled son, Luiz, over the weekend. 

LEON AND CHRISTINA OLIWKOWICZ

Leon Oliwkowicz and his wife Christina were also identified as victims of the tower collapse on Sunday evening 

The couple lived on the 8th floor of the condo tower for several years, according to Venezuelan journalist Shirley Varnagy, a close friend of their family.

They were among six Venezuelan natives caught in the building's collapse. Still missing Monday were Moisés Rodán, 28; Andrés Levine, 27; Luis Sadovnik, 28, and his wife, Nicole Langesfeld, Varnagy said.

Varnagy said the Oliwkowicz's daughter had been outside the building waiting for some information about their fate. Her husband answered their phone and asked to be left alone.

The couple's daughter, Mrs. Leah Fouhal, works as a secretary at a Jewish school in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, where the couple donated a Torah in 2019 in a procession that included a vintage fire truck, music and a giant velvet and gold crown, according to COLlive.com, an Orthodox Jewish news outlet that covers Chabad-Lubavitch communities around the world.

Meanwhile, the parents of Rodán, Levine and Sadovnik live in Venezuela and traveled to the U.S. Friday. 'Some did not have a visa, others had an expired passport, but with diplomatic collaboration they were able to arrive,' Varnagy said. 

MARCOS JOSEPH GUARA & MICHAEL DAVID ALTMAN

The body of 52-year-old Marcus Joseph Guara was recovered on Saturday

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THE 2018 REPORT THAT FOUND CONCRETE SPALLING IN THE BASEMENT PARKING GARAGE AND OTHER DAMAGE TO THE POOL, BALCONIES AND WINDOWS 

The 12-story Miami condo had been flagged for 'major structural damage' to the pool deck area and underground parking garage in a damning report almost three years before it collapsed early Thursday, killing at least four and leaving 159 still missing.

A consultant engineer warned back in October 2018 that the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Miami Beach, was in need of numerous repairs around the base of the structure 'in a timely fashion.'

The structural field survey report specifically raised concerns about the pool deck area, in which the waterproofing was failing, and the underground parking garage which was riddled with 'abundant' cracking.  

Consultant Frank Morabito carried out the inspection to assess the overall condition of the building and recommend any structural issues in need of repair, as the building neared its 40-year standing and in turn its need for recertification under local regulation. 

In the report, he warned that the 'main issue' was the pool deck and entrance drive area, where condo residents would enjoy the Miami sunshine by the pool.

The parking garage, some of which lay beneath the pool area, had 'abundant cracking and spalling', the report found (see pictures contained in the report above)

The report also found previous repairs to the garage were 'failing' (pictures from the report above). The underground parking garage was partly beneath the pool area, where the report found waterproofing was failing

Several other issues including cracking was detailed in the report. Despite the apparent urgency of some of the recommendations, repairs were only about to begin - more than two and a half years after the inspection

Morabito wrote that the waterproofing below the pool deck and entrance drive was failing' and 'beyond its useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replaced.'

The report warned that the failed waterproofing was 'causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas.'

'Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,' it read. 

Morabito wrote that there had been a 'major error' in the original design of that area because the waterproofing was laid on a concrete slab that was flat, rather than sloped to allow water to run off.

The engineering firm released a statement Saturday confirming that it completed the report in 2018 that 'detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete' of the building and gave a cost estimate to make the fixes.

The condo board hired the company also in 2020, the company said in its statement, to complete a plan for its 40-year certification.

'We are deeply troubled by this building collapse and are working closely with the investigating authorities to understand why the structure failed,' the statement said. 'As we do so, we also continue to pray for all those impacted by this tragic event.' 

The report recommended a list of repairs to the area including repairs to the concrete structure, 'installing a new waterproofing membrane, protection board and drain panels on the new sloped surface' among other changes.