A pair of East Bay firefighters are headed to Surfside, Florida to lend a hand as search and rescue crews continue to dig for survivors of last week's condominium building collapse near Miami Beach.
Chris Landry, a Battalion Chief in the Oakland Fire Department, and Jeff Peter, Assistant Fire Chief of the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, will join Florida’s 11 federal and state search-and-rescue teams working on site.
With "worn-out" crews currently working 12-hour shifts in hot and humid conditions, it's time to bring in reinforcements, including what Landry described as "very large machinery."
"We also have to do it very carefully because if there are people underneath, we have to remove it so that we can optimize the opportunity for them to survive," Landry explained to KCBS Radio. "It's a tedious process, it's a slow process because we don't want to 'cause somebody that could still be alive in there, cause them worse injuries."
Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava said on Monday that 10 people are dead and 151 remain unaccounted for from last week's collapse at Champlain Towers South.
Landry’s a member of FEMA's Oakland-based Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 4, which gets deployed to major disasters. The unit is ready to pitch in but has not yet been put on alert, as closer teams in Virginia and Ohio are the next crews ready to activate.
Landry and Peter’s deployment could last as long as two weeks, as they oversee on-site search and rescue crews. In addition to the machinery, crews are also utilizing listening devices and canine units.
They have enormous piles to survey, and that’s why the digging is taking so long.
"You have to remember, we are talking about a (12-story building) that is now 20, 30, 40 feet tall," Landry said. "That's a lot of debris to review. This is a very large rubble pile that we're trying to get through."
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