Where are the pets? Mayor says crews searched Surfside condo units before demolition

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David J. Neal, Douglas Hanks
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In defending the efforts to save family pets left behind in Surfside’s Champlain Towers South, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava says rescue workers went into condos on Sunday looking for animals before the building was demolished.

“They were, at great risk to themselves, searching inside those units that had been indicated that might have pets and searching very thoroughly,” she said Monday.

On Saturday, Levine Cava had said any pet search before the demolition wouldn’t involve going into units because “it is not safe for anyone to go beyond the first floor.”

By Saturday night, a change.org petition to “Stop the demolition until all animals are safe!” had 4,300 signatures. It closed with 18,077. An animal-rescue volunteer tried to halt the demolition with a Sunday night emergency motion that would allow her to go into the building to bring out the pets. A Miami-Dade judge denied the motion.

Woman asks judge to stop Surfside building demolition to save a pet. It didn’t work

On Monday, unprompted, Levine Cava returned to the issue of the demolition and any pets that might have still been in what remained of the Surfside apartment building.

She said crews did everything possible to find and rescue pets.

“In the days since the collapse, the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue team conducted multiple full sweeps of the building in person, including searching in closets and under beds and other hiding places,” she said. “The areas of the building that were not accessible to the teams, they used ladders on high lift cranes, and they placed live animal traps on the balconies at great personal risk to our first responders.

“Doorways were opened, other means for the pets to escape the building if they were able,” she continued. “We deployed drones with thermal imaging on numerous trips over the rubble pile and standing in the tower, in areas unsafe for search and rescue teams to enter.”

Death toll rises to 27 in Surfside collapse as demolition opens new areas to search teams

‘Everybody in Miami knows somebody from that building’

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