Crews spend 5th day atop shaky pile of collapsed concrete

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Rescuers searching for a fifth day for survivors of a Florida condo building collapse used bucket brigades and heavy machinery Monday as they worked atop a precarious mound of pulverized concrete, twisted steel and the remnants of dozens of households.

Authorities said the efforts are still a search-and-rescue operation, but no one has been found alive since hours after the collapse on Thursday. Ten people have been confirmed killed, and more than 150 others are still missing in the community of Surfside, just outside Miami.

The pancake collapse of the 12-story building left layer upon layer of intertwined debris, frustrating efforts to reach anyone who may have survived in a pocket of space.

“Every time there’s an action, there’s a reaction,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said during a news conference. “It’s not an issue of we could just attach a couple of cords to a concrete boulder and lift it and call it a day.” Some of the concrete pieces are smaller, the size of basketballs or baseballs.

Underscoring the dangerous nature of the work, he noted that families who rode buses to visit the site on Sunday witnessed a rescuer tumble 25 feet down the pile. Workers and victims must both be considered, he said.

“It’s going to take time,” he said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s a 12-story building.”

Relatives continued their visits on Monday. From outside a neighboring building, more than two dozen family members watched teams of searchers excavate the building site. Some held onto each other for support. Others hugged and prayed. Some people took photos.

The intense effort includes firefighters, sniffer dogs and search experts using radar and sonar devices.

Early Monday, a crane lifted a large slab of concrete from the debris pile, enabling about 30 rescuers in hard hats to move in and carry smaller pieces of debris into red buckets, which are emptied into a larger bin for a crane to remove. The work has been complicated by intermittent rain showers, but the fires that hampered the initial search have been extinguished.

Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer and state fire marshal, said it was the largest deployment of such resources in Florida history that was not due to a hurricane. He said the same number of people were on the ground in Surfside as during Hurricane Michael, a devastating Category 5 hurricane that hit 12 counties in 2018.

“They’re working around the clock,” Patronis said. “They’re working 12 hours at a time, midnight to noon to midnight.”

Andy Alvarez, a deputy incident commander with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that rescuers have been able to find some voids, or spaces, inside the wreckage, mostly in the basement and the parking garage.

“We have over 80 rescuers at a time that are breaching the walls that collapsed, in a frantic effort to try to rescue those that are still viable and to get to those voids that we typically know exist in these buildings,” Alvarez said.

“We have been able to tunnel through the building,” Alvarez added. “This is a frantic search to seek that hope, that miracle, to see who we can bring out of this building alive.”

Others who have seen the wreckage up close were daunted by the task ahead. Alfredo Lopez, who lived with his wife in a sixth-floor corner apartment and narrowly escaped, said he finds it hard to believe anyone is alive in the rubble.

“If you saw what I saw: nothingness. And then, you go over there and you see, like, all the rubble. How can somebody survive that?” Lopez told The Associated Press.

While most rescue teams were from the area, others came from elsewhere, including a small group of rescue workers from the Mexican group Cadena International.

The group was using a suitcase-size device that uses microwave radar to “see” through concrete slabs and pick up heartbeats and other sounds up to 40 feet inside and under the rubble. But as of Monday, the group had not detected any heartbeats or sounds, said Ricardo Aizenman.

“We are still working all the way, and we are hopeful for a miracle,” he said, adding that the best window for rescue is in the first 72 hours.

New border fight pits Texas against Biden over care for 4,500 migrant kids

The Biden administration is in an escalating battle with Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over a state plan to close shelters housing roughly 4,500 unaccompanied immigrant children.

Abbott, who has positioned himself as a chief Biden antagonist on immigration ahead of a potential 2024 presidential bid, plans to revoke the licenses of any shelter that continues to serve migrant kids beginning Aug. 31 — a move that threatens to upend the refugee resettlement effort and has left federal health officials threatening to sue.

Yet a series of tense letters between the Department of Health and Human Services and the state this month obtained by POLITICO show Abbott striking a defiant tone amid the GOP’s broader campaign to hammer President Joe Biden over immigration and border security. The showdown is likely to intensify in the coming days, when Abbott is due to accompany former President Donald Trump on a trip to the border.

“The federal government must solve the federal problem caused by the Biden administration’s disastrous open-border policies,” Abbott wrote in a recent letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Texas will not be commandeered into federal government service.”

Officials in several other GOP-led states have declined to aid HHS’ months-long effort to arrange housing and services for tens of thousands of migrant children in federal care, privately rejecting the government’s appeals for help and in some cases publicly criticizing the possibility of unaccompanied children entering their states.

But Texas’s order represents the most drastic attempt by a state to decouple itself from a long-running federal program that relies on state-licensed organizations to shelter migrant children until they can be placed with guardians. HHS has accused Abbott of launching a “direct attack” on the administration’s effort to care for record numbers of unaccompanied children crossing the southern border and said it’s consulting with the Justice Department on necessary legal action.

Under Abbott’s plan, 52 shelters across the state would be forced to halt care for unaccompanied minors or be stripped of the licenses currently needed to remain open.

That would leave more than a quarter of the nation’s entire population of migrant kids without anywhere to stay. Texas hasn’t offered any housing alternatives, with Abbott insisting that it’s HHS’ responsibility.

He has also vowed to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, boasting earlier this month that Texas is “doing more than any other state has ever done to respond to these challenges along the border.”

HHS said it is still awaiting a response to more than two dozen questions that Deputy General Counsel Paul Rodriguez sent to Abbott and other Texas officials seeking specifics on how they planned to implement the order.

“We are exploring our options, for the sake of protecting the safety and well-being of unaccompanied children at licensed facilities in Texas,” a spokesperson said.

Abbott’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Thousands of children could be scattered to shelters around the country if the Texas order were to take effect, former officials and advocates for the unaccompanied minors said. And with the administration already struggling to manage an influx of kids, those destinations would likely be emergency facilities constructed on military bases and in convention centers that have faced scrutiny from both Republicans and Democrats over their conditions.

“It’s very hard to see what’s accomplished,” said Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute who led HHS’ Administration for Children and Families during the Obama administration. “There’s been broad agreement that it’s a good thing for children to be in licensed facilities — which are regulated and monitored — and this effort just makes that harder.”

Abbott previously criticized the emergency sites that HHS rushed to open in response to the sharp rise of border arrivals, calling one shelter in Texas “a health and safety nightmare” just two-and-a-half months ago.

But in his most recent letter to Becerra, Abbott cited the emergency facilities as justification for withdrawing all state-level support, arguing that Texas shouldn’t also have to offer up its own licensed facilities.

“The federal government cannot force a state to do the federal government’s job,” he wrote.

HHS has warned Abbott that his order appears to violate various federal laws, a view shared by legal experts who said it’s guaranteed to be challenged in court as soon as it takes effect.

“At the most basic level, states aren’t allowed to discriminate against federal contractors,” said Spencer Amdur, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “They also can’t obstruct in any way the federal government’s ability to work with private entities.”

Still, the Texas order has sown confusion among the organizations running shelters that rely solely on contracts with the federal government to care for unaccompanied children and now must devise a fallback plan within weeks.

State officials have also struggled with how to enforce Abbott’s order, which offered no specific guidance on how it should be implemented and little justification beyond criticizing the Biden administration for its “failure to secure the border.”

Abbott in a June 11 letter to Becerra denied that the order would result in facilities being shut down altogether, saying only that they would no longer be licensed by the state. But a notice sent nine days earlier by Texas’ health agency to shelter organizations instructed them to wind down all activities tied to unaccompanied minors.

One major shelter operator, BCFS, was separately warned by a state health official that it would be fined if it continued to house migrant children beyond Aug. 31, the organization told POLITICO.

A spokesperson for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission declined to offer details on how it planned to enforce Abbott’s order, saying the agency is still working on an implementation process.

Democrats, meanwhile, have blasted Abbott over what they argue is a political ploy to fortify his standing with the Republican base at the expense of vulnerable children — a move made more evident by Trump’s planned return to the border this week.

“It’s obviously very alarming, destructive and very harmful for children in need,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who on Friday hosted Vice President Kamala Harris’ own border visit. “The governor long ago abandoned governing, and he is focused solely on fighting the culture wars.”

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have also distanced themselves from Abbott’s plan, even as they’ve enthusiastically embraced broader criticisms of the administration’s border policy.

Asked about the prospect of yanking facilities’ licenses, Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw told POLITICO he hadn’t looked into it and wasn’t a “state rep[resentative].” Sen. Ted Cruz also said he’d hadn’t talked with Abbott about the order and declined to say whether he supported it.

Nevertheless, the confrontation risks pulling the administration into a drawn-out fight over an immigration challenge that it has worked hard to tamp down across the first months of Biden’s presidency.

After hitting a record high of almost 23,000 unaccompanied children in federal custody in April, the health department has winnowed the population down below 15,000. That’s a level that remains significantly higher than normal, but has allowed it to move more children out of emergency facilities and into higher-quality licensed facilities.

Yet even as it lays the groundwork for a swift legal challenge, officials conceded that there’s little HHS can do to head off Abbott’s order now before it takes effect — setting the stage for a protracted clash over the border that could carry well into the fall.

“The politics is everything,” Amdur said. “I think, basically, they’re doing this to make the administration look bad.”

The 2024 Iowa caucus campaign has already begun

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump would be the overwhelming front-runner for the Republican Party’s nomination should he wage a 2024 comeback bid. But that’s not stopping his would-be GOP successors from barreling into Iowa.

Only months after Trump’s election defeat, Republicans are laying the groundwork for the all-important, first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. Potential candidates are hopscotching across the state to fundraise, campaign for midterm hopefuls and appear at traditional party dinners that mark the start of caucus season.

And behind the scenes, Republicans are making overtures to influential activists, meeting with party leaders and hiring operatives with deep experience in Iowa, which is still expected to be the first 2024 contest for Republicans — even though Democrats are grappling with whether to change their nominating calendar.

The burst of early activity — which is set to accelerate over the summer months — illustrates how Republicans are maneuvering with an eye toward succeeding Trump. A Trump bid would likely extinguish their hopes of becoming the party’s nominee, and at least one candidate has said they won't run if if Trump does. But would-be contenders are wasting no time preparing for the possibility of an open nominating contest.

During an interview following an Iowa Republican Party dinner here last week, former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad ticked off a list of recent and upcoming visitors to the state, ranging from South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to former Vice President Mike Pence to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“What I tell any candidate, of either party: Come early, come often, get to know the people of Iowa,” said Branstad, who served a record six terms as the state’s governor. “We’re going to have a whole lot of people” come.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley became the latest potential candidate to make a pilgrimage to Iowa, embarking on a three-day trip last week that included speeches before the Story County Republican Party and the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner.

The first multi-candidate cattle-call is slated for next month, when Pence, Pompeo and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem are set to trek to Des Moines to address the Family Leadership Summit, a gathering that will draw evangelicals from across the state.

The early campaign schedule is being dominated by former Trump administration officials like Haley and Pompeo who, now lacking the platform that comes with holding public office, are using the trips to keep themselves in the spotlight. But sitting lawmakers are also beginning to make forays into Iowa: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton is holding an event in Sioux Center next week and is also planning an August visit to the state. Florida Sen. Rick Scott has been to Iowa twice this year and is expected to return sometime this summer in his capacity as chair of the Senate GOP campaign arm. Tim Scott, meanwhile, attended an April fundraiser in Davenport.

Yet more outreach is taking place in private. Jeff Kaufmann, Iowa’s influential Republican Party chair, has met with several prospective candidates, including Haley, and has been advising hopefuls on what parts of the state they should visit. Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Iowa social conservative who is hosting the Family Leadership Summit, has spoken with Pence, a longtime friend.

Cotton is seeking out another route to build alliances. The senator has taken on the role of campaign recruiter and is talking with potential challengers for the lone Democratic congressional district in Iowa. Cotton has also been in regular contact with several members of Iowa’s congressional delegation, including Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who in 2020 won the election by a razor-thin, six-vote margin.

Coinciding with his trip to Iowa this week, Cotton is set to launch a program aimed at bolstering military veterans such as Miller-Meeks. As part of the effort, the Arkansas Republican is expected to campaign for the freshman congresswoman, raise money for her and fund attack ads against her eventual Democratic opponent.

Some are even tapping political strategists to help them navigate the state. Pence has been working with Chip Saltsman, the GOP operative who helped oversee former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2008 caucus win. Pompeo is being advised by former U.S. Ambassador Chuck Larson, a past Iowa legislator and state GOP chair. The list of other operatives who’ve received outreach from prospective presidential hopefuls includes Jimmy Centers, a former top Branstad aide.

For now, the most visible political activity is organized around the 2022 midterm elections, with potential hopefuls using down-ballot contests to earn chits and introduce themselves to future caucus-goers. Those on the ground say Haley has been among the most aggressive in bolstering candidates, sending out emails and text messages raising money for Gov. Kim Reynolds and the state’s congressional delegation. Haley also campaigned for several Iowa lawmakers during the 2020 election.

“There’s a lot of room for people to work, raise money, fire up the base, and help candidates who need help,” said David Kochel, a veteran Iowa-based GOP strategist. “I would imagine it’s going to [be] busy here for the next couple of years before there’s more clarity about what 2024 looks like.”

Some would-be candidates are already mixing in up-close-and-personal campaigning with the high-profile fundraisers and big party speeches. Pompeo has made a point of appearing at local gatherings and reaching out to grassroots organizations. This March, barely two months after leaving the State Department, Pompeo visited the Pottawattamie County Republican Party, met with the Urbandale-based Westside Conservative Club, and toured the headquarters of an agricultural equipment manufacturing company. The former Kansas congressman is planning to make similar local visits during an upcoming trip.

The strategy closely aligns with what’s become an article of faith: Iowans want to be courted.

“Iowans are very [discerning] voters, and they’re probably not going to make a decision until they’ve seen a candidate probably three or four times," said Branstad, who has recently appeared alongside Haley and Pompeo at events.

“You’ve got to make a good impression — not just a first impression, you’ve got to make a good impression several times and build momentum over time,” added Branstad, who said he doesn’t yet have a preferred candidate.

And despite the early date, potential contenders are already facing tests. The Family Leadership Summit, for instance, could become an initial barometer of evangelical support in a state filled with social conservatives. Much of the focus is likely to be on Noem, who this spring antagonized religious conservatives when she vetoed a bill that would have barred transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams out of concern it would get struck down in the courts. Noem later signed a pair of executive orders imposing the ban.

Kaufmann, meanwhile, has been publicly pressing would-be candidates on whether they support maintaining Iowa’s prized first-in-the-nation status. With Democrats openly weighing whether to alter their calendar following a chaotic 2020 caucus, some Iowa Republicans have expressed concerns they, too, will be dislodged. Although the odds of that happening appear remote — the Republican National Committee largely controls the nomination calendar and hasn’t made any indication it wants a change — that didn’t stop Kaufmann from asking Haley at the Lincoln Dinner whether she believed Iowa should remain first.

The former South Carolina governor responded she was “fine” with it — as long as her home state retained its status as the first southern state to cast its ballots. The remark drew laughter from the 500-person audience that had packed into West Des Moines' cavernous Ron Pearson Center.

At least one Republican, however, is purposely avoiding the state. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has drawn widespread national interest from conservatives, doesn't have any trips to Iowa planned out of concern that it will further stoke speculation he's prepping a 2024 bid. DeSantis allies say they're focused squarely on his 2022 reelection effort and view talk of a presidential campaign as an unwelcome distraction.

And of course, overshadowing the early maneuvering is Trump.

Should the former president mount a comeback, it's possible that many of the Iowa visitors won't end up pursuing presidential bids. Kaufmann, who noted that he had invited Trump to the state, said he had “zero doubt that these candidates will rally around him” if Trump runs.

Others, however, see the reception the prospective Trump successors are getting as a sign the party may be willing to move on from the former president.

“I think you’re seeing conservatives look kind of beyond President Trump, and not because they’re upset at all about what he did, I think they’re just looking at who else might be out there for 2024,” said Vander Plaats. “And so that’s what I think makes this environment very intriguing.”

Families of the missing visit site of Florida condo collapse

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Families of the missing visited the scene of the Florida condo building collapse Sunday as rescuers kept digging through the mound of rubble and clinging to hope that someone could yet be alive somewhere under the broken concrete and twisted metal.

The death toll rose by just four people, to a total of nine confirmed dead. But after almost four full days of search-and-rescue efforts, more than 150 additional people were still missing in Surfside. No one has been pulled alive from the pile since Thursday, hours after the collapse.

Some families had hoped their visit would allow them to shout messages to loved ones possibly buried deep inside the pile.

Buses brought several groups of relatives to a place where they could view the pile and the rescuers at work. As relatives returned to a nearby hotel, several paused to embrace as they got off the bus. Others walked slowly with arms around each other back to the hotel entrance.

“We are just waiting for answers. That’s what we want,” said Dianne Ohayon, whose parents, Myriam and Arnie Notkin were in the building. “It’s hard to go through these long days and we haven’t gotten any answers yet.”

Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, who visited with family members, led a humanitarian delegation to Surfside that included several Israeli experts in search-and-rescue operations. He said the experts have told him of cases where survivors were found after 100 hours or more.

“So don’t lose hope, that’s what I would say. But you have everyone understanding the longer it takes, the prospects of finding someone alive goes down,” he said.

“If you watch the scene, you know it’s almost impossible to find someone alive,” Shai added. “But you never know. Sometimes miracles happen, you know? We Jews believe in miracles.”

Rescuers sought to reassure families that they were doing as much as possible to find missing loved ones, but the crews said they needed to work carefully for the best chance of uncovering survivors.

Some relatives have been frustrated with the pace of rescue efforts.

“My daughter is 26 years old, in perfect health. She could make it out of there,” one mother told rescuers during a weekend meeting with family members. A video of the meeting was posted by Instagram user Abigail Pereira.

“It’s not enough,” continued the mother, who was among relatives who pushed authorities to bring in experts from other countries to help. “Imagine if your children were in there.”

Scores of rescue workers remained on the massive heap of rubble Sunday, searching for survivors but so far finding only bodies and human remains.

In a meeting with families Saturday evening, people moaned and wept as Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah explained why he could not answer their repeated questions about how many victims they had found.

“It’s not necessarily that we’re finding victims, OK? We’re finding human remains,” Jadallah said, according to the video posted on Instagram.

He noted the pancake collapse of the 12-story building, which had crumbled into a rubble pile that could be measured in feet. Those conditions have frustrated crews looking for survivors, he said.

Every time crews find remains, they clean the area and remove the remains. They work with a rabbi to ensure any religious rituals are done properly, Jadallah said.

If crews find any “artifacts,” such as documents, pictures or money, they turn them over to police, officials said.

Alan Cominsky, chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, said they are holding out hope of finding someone alive, but they must be slow and methodical.

“The debris field is scattered throughout, and it’s compact, extremely compact,” he said.

Debris must be stabilized and shored up as they go.

“If there is a void space, we want to make sure we’re given every possibility of a survivor. That’s why we can’t just go in and move things erratically, because that’s going to have the worst outcome possible,” he said.

In meetings with authorities, family members repeatedly pushed rescuers to do more. One asked why they could not surgically remove the largest pieces of cement with cranes, to try to uncover bigger voids where survivors might be found.

“There’s not giant pieces that we can easily surgically remove,” replied Maggie Castro, of the fire rescue agency.

“They’re not big pieces. Pieces are crumbled, and they’re being held together by the rebar that’s part of the construction. So if we try to lift that piece, even as carefully, those pieces that are crumbling can fall off the sides and disturb the pile,” Castro said.

She said they try to cut rebar in strategic places and remove large pieces, but that they have to remove them in a way that nothing will fall onto the pile.

“We are doing layer by layer,” Castro said. “It doesn’t stop. It’s all day. All night.”

Rescuers were also using a microwave radar device developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the Department of Homeland Security that “sees” through up to 8 inches of solid concrete, according to Adrian Garulay, CEO of Spec Ops Group, which sells them. The suitcase-sized device can detect human respiration and heartbeats and was being deployed Sunday by a seven-member search-and-rescue team from Mexico’s Jewish community.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said six to eight teams are actively searching the pile at any given time, with hundreds of team members on standby ready to rotate in. She said teams have worked around the clock since Thursday, and there was no lack of personnel.

Teams are also working with engineers and sonar to make sure the rescuers are safe.

Crews spent Saturday night digging a trench that stretches 125 feet long, 20 feet across and 40 feet deep, which, she said, allowed them to find more bodies and human remains.

Earl Tilton, who runs a search-and-rescue consulting firm in North Carolina, said rushing into the rubble without careful planning and execution would injure or kill rescuers and the people they are trying to save, said Tilton, who runs Lodestar Professional Services in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

“I understand the families’ concerns on this. If it was my family member, I would want everyone in there pulling rubble away as fast as humanly possible,” Tilton said. “But moving the wrong piece of debris at the wrong time could cause it to fall on them and crush them.”

During past urban rescues, rescuers have found survivors as long as a week past the initial catastrophe, Tilton said.

Authorities are gathering DNA samples from family members to aid in identification. Late Saturday, four of the victims were identified as Stacie Dawn Fang, 54; Antonio Lozano, 83; Gladys Lozano, 79; and Manuel LaFont, 54.

Miami-Dade mayor: We dearly hope collapse was 'an anomaly'

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Sunday that she hopes the collapse of the condo in Surfside was “an anomaly,” and that officials are continuing to investigate what happened, in addition to reinspecting older buildings in the area.

The death toll from the collapse rose to nine Sunday, and the number of residents missing remained more than 150. Rescuers continue to scour the rubble for any possible survivors.

Over the weekend, Levine Cava announced a 30-day audit for buildings 40 years or older in response to the incident.

She told Chuck Todd of NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday that since Hurricane Andrew hit the area in 1992, buildings have been built and inspected up to a certain code. The 13-story Champlain Towers South, which collapsed around 1:30 a.m. Thursday, was built in 1981.

Once more information becomes available, Levine Cava said, “we may look at what else we may do,” beyond the re-inspections of those buildings 40 years or older.

“At this point, we're starting with the review of those 40 plus, and look this, as far as we know and hope, is an anomaly, but the investigation is going to be ongoing,” she added. “Right now, we're still very focused on search and rescue.”

With hurricane season on the horizon, Levine Cava said the area is prepared.

“Our emergency operation center is ready to go. It is activated because of this disaster,” she said. “We are on top of it. Of course we'll deal with whatever comes our way.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Sunday on CBS News' “Face the Nation” that he “has little doubt we will know why this happened and be able to make changes to building codes if necessary to prevent it from happening again.”

“Right now, 99 percent of the focus is on trying to find any survivors and give these families closure on this terrible tragedy,” he added.

'Message in the mess': Family finds hope as search continues

SURFSIDE, Fla. — When Mike Noriega heard that part of the condominium tower where his grandmother lived had collapsed, he rushed with his father to the scene. They arrived at a nightmarish 30-foot pile of pancaked concrete and mangled metal, the remains of her 12-story building — and no sign of 92-year-old Hilda Noriega.

But among the flying debris, they stumbled across mementos that bore witness to Hilda’s life on the sixth floor in Champlain Towers South: an old picture of her with her late husband and their infant son, and a birthday card that friends from her prayer group sent two weeks earlier with the acronym “ESM,” Spanish for “hand-delivered,” scrawled across the yellow envelope with a butterfly etching.

“There was a message in the mess of all this,” Noriega said. “It means not to give up hope. To have faith.”

Days after Thursday’s collapse, Hilda remains among more than 150 people unaccounted for in Surfside, north of Miami Beach, with five confirmed dead and authorities and loved ones fearing the toll will go much higher.

As scores of rescuers continue to use heavy machinery and power tools to clear the rubble from the top and tunnel in from below, the Noriega family still have hope she will be found alive.

“Some miracles are very big, others are small,” said Mike, 36, who last spoke to Hilda the day before the disaster.

They described Hilda as a fiercely independent and vivacious retiree — in Mike’s words, “the youngest 92-year-old I know ... 92 going on 62.”

Hilda Noriega. (Courtesy of Sally Noriega via AP)Hilda Noriega had called Champlain Towers South home for more than 20 years. But six years removed from her husband’s death, she was ready to leave. The condo was up for sale, and her plan was to move in with family.

She had loved living near the ocean and friends, but “when you lose a spouse, you want to be surrounded by family ... and she wanted to spend more time with her family and grandchildren,” said Sally Noriega, Hilda’s daughter-in-law.

Sally called Hilda a sweet, loving person who built a life with her husband and raised a family after coming to the U.S. from Cuba in 1960.

“She was just one of those people who from the first time she met a person she instantly loved that person, and that person instantly loved her,” Sally said.

Carlos Noriega, Hilda’s son and police chief of nearby North Bay Village, was one of the emergency responders clambering atop the pile.

The Noriegas don’t entirely know what to make of the treasured mementos found amid the chaos, but Sally said: “We are a family of faith. We’ll just leave it at that.”

They are among dozens of anguished families awaiting word on the fate of loved ones. The wait has been agonizing.

The atmosphere inside a hotel ballroom where around 200 family members were being briefed by authorities Saturday was tense, two people present told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.

The two said families frustrated with the slow pace of recovery efforts had demanded they be allowed to go to the scene and attempt a collective shout — an attempt as much to find survivors as a cathartic farewell to those who had died.

The confirmed death toll rose to five Saturday as rescuers battled fire and smoke deep inside the heap in a race against time. With a sulfur-like stench hanging in the air, they used everything from trained dogs and sonar equipment to buckets and drones.

“Our top priority continues to be search-and-rescue and saving any lives that we can,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said.

The mayor said the identification of three bodies had dropped the number of people unaccounted for down to 156, and crews also discovered other unspecified human remains. The remains are being sent to the medical examiner, and authorities are gathering DNA samples from family members to aid in identification.

A video posted online showed an official briefing families. When he said they had found remains among the rubble, people began sobbing.

Late Saturday, four of the victims were identified, as Stacie Dawn Fang, 54; Antonio Lozano, 83, and Gladys Lozano, 79; and Manuel LaFont, 54.

The Paramount Miami Worldcenter tower in downtown Miami was also lit with the words “One World, One Prayer.” Organizers plan to light up the condo building with the message every night for two minutes on the hour until all victims of the Champlain Towers South collapse are accounted for.

Also late Saturday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said a city official had led a cursory review of the nearby Champlain Towers North and Champlain Towers East buildings but “didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

The news came after word of a 2018 engineering report that showed the building, which was built in 1981, had “major structural damage” to a concrete slab below its pool deck that needed extensive repairs, part of a series of documents released by the city of Surfside.

Further documentation showed the estimated cost of the repairs would total over $9 million. That included more than $3.8 million for garage, entrance and pool remediation and nearly $3.2 million for fixes to the exterior façade.

While officials said no cause for the collapse early Thursday has been determined, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner.

Trump dishes the red meat but keeps revenge on ice

WELLINGTON, Ohio — Donald Trump’s first MAGA rally since leaving the White House was billed as a takedown of one of the 10 Republicans who voted for the then-president’s impeachment following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.

“He’s a sell out and fake Republican,” Trump said of Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez as he boosted his own former aide and 16th district candidate Max Miller. But Trump's apparent laser focus on getting even for past slights was short-lived.

Instead, he delivered a red-meat speech to thousands of die-hard fans who crowded the Lorain County fairgrounds in rural northeast Ohio and were eager to hear the ex-president deliver lines they have heard for years.

Over the course of a winding but largely familiar speech, Trump took aim at political enemies, aired a long list of grievances, waxed poetic about his time in the Oval Office, and entertained a lineup of right-wing figures who helped him fan conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Tony Hocevar, a longtime supporter from the Cleveland area, said he wanted to hear Trump talk about “the same stuff — just more of it.”

For over an hour, Trump took aim at the Biden administration’s policies on immigration and Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to the southern border, and, without saying his name, slammed Gen. Mark Milley and “woke generals” over their comments about critical race theory. He revived chants of “lock her up!” about Hillary Clinton and read the poem “The Snake,” a fan favorite from the 2016 campaign trail.

“The subject matter is somewhat depressing, because what happened in November should have never have happened,” Trump said. "They used Covid to steal the election."

The crowds were sympathetic to Trump and eager to hear him announce another run for president. Each of the over half-a-dozen rallygoers interviewed said they wanted Trump to signal he plans to run for a third time in 2024.

“I hope he’s either looking to run, or run for Speaker of the House,” said Richard Stachurski, referring to a rumor circulating among Trump supporters that Trump could potentially run and win a House race, then take over as Speaker.

Thousands of supporters, some in T-shirts that read "Trump 2024," and "Trump is my President," packed in hours before Trump took the stage. But as his speech went on for over an hour, supporters trickled out — some had grown frustrated after a jumbotron did not show a live video of the speech.

Before Trump took the stage, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was greeted with a standing ovation and met with a roar of cheers when she called on infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci to be fired.

“Lock him up! Lock him up!” the crowd yelled.

“Let me ask you a question — who is president?” Greene said. “Trump! Trump! Trump!” the crowd called back.

Rallygoers clamored for selfies with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has pushed false theories about election fraud and is being sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Systems for his claims the company rigged the election.

And in an unusual kick off to a political rally, a Cincinnati-area math teacher, Douglas Frank gave a PowerPoint presentation with charts and numbers meant to convince the crowd he has data to back up untrue claims of widespread, coordinated election fraud. The crowd sat quietly as he clicked through his slide show.

Before the rally, Trump attended a VIP reception and fundraiser in support of Miller attended by high-profile donors and Republican Senate primary candidates eager to secure an endorsement.

Jane Timken, the former Ohio GOP chairwoman, flew a plane with a banner that read “Ohio is Trump Country” and passed out flyers that said she is the “Only True Pro-Trump America First Candidate,” with a list of all the ways she has supported Trump.

Trump, who has been advised not to make an endorsement yet in the crowded Senate GOP primary, acknowledged every candidate by name but avoided offering any his stamp of approval.

Instead he polled the audience. "Who likes Jane Timken? Who likes Josh Mandel? Who likes Gibbons?" (Trump forgot to name Bernie Moreno in the audience poll.)

Next week, a fifth candidate could enter the race: J.D. Vance, the author of "Hillbilly Elegy," who was at the rally and said he will be making an announcement next week about his decision to run.