The Surfside disaster prompted municipalities and counties across the country to take a more rigorous look at structural damage to buildings.
The impact was almost immediate: seven miles from the collapse zone, a week later, the residents of the building, “Crestview Tower”, received an evacuation order and to this day, many continue to live in limbo.
“They began to close the streets around the building,” says Ramón Torres, who lived in the “Crestview Tower” and who clearly remembers the moment when everything happened in a matter of seconds and learned about it from the news.
On July 2, 2021, the 156-unit Crestview Tower had received an urgent evacuation order, deemed “structurally unsafe.”
“They knocked on our door and told us ‘you have two hours to pick up what you can and you have to go,’” he recalls that it was the last day there for him and his wife. “If they tell you beforehand, you prepare, but that was without any preparation.”
The Crestview evacuation would be only the first in months to come. After the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside and during these two years, another 8 buildings -according to our reports- have registered total evacuations.
After returning to four of these properties to see what has happened, we found that 6881 Indian Creek Drive, in Miami Beach was evacuated on July 12, 2021. Eventually its owner confirmed the intention to demolish it that same year but almost 2 years later it continues. standing, with visible structural deterioration and with notifications about multiple code violations.
The 4-story building located at 1080 93rd Street in Bay Harbor Islands remains closed and protected by a fence. It is over 50 years old and was evacuated on September 1, 2021 for being considered unsafe in its structure.
That was the same reason for the eviction of another property located at 3800 168th Street in northeast North Miami Beach. More than a year after its evacuation on April 5, 2022, it is still closed.
Finally, we confirm that the Crestview is guarded by the police, still covered by scaffolding.
“It completely changed our life,” says Ramón Torres, who did not own the Crestview Tower and after four desperate months looking for new rent, settled in another apartment in Homestead, but he has a message for renters like him. “You have to watch out. Look to the sides. To the columns to save their own lives”.
Behind each one of these evacuations there are hundreds of stories, hundreds of families challenged -not only because of the economic cost- but also because of the emotional one. In the best of scenarios, many have been away from home for a few weeks. At worst, stories like those of the Crestview Tower residents whose nightmare is not over are repeated.
