any new details that you could share with us before that briefing? well, you know, i met with the families this morning after i took a walk on the site. and i could confirm that i ve never seen the site so busy with men, women and equipment. it is really encouraging to see how aggressively they are attacking the pile. up at the family meeting, when the family was told that the search resumed 20 minutes after the demolition, there was applause. i believe there was great relief and gratefulness towards the search and rescue workers who have been just tirelessly sort of plowing ahead against all kinds of difficult situations. as i ve said, there is not a resource problem, we just had a little bit of a luck problem and now with the storm moving away and with this building that was a looming danger and preventing a lot of work from being done, being gone we re now at 100% full strength, full on, pulling
responders to ensure that all of the pets that were beloved family members, that none of them were left in the building prior to the demolition. since the first responders were able to resume their work on the collapse last night, we have very sadly recovered three additional victims. the total number of confirmed deaths is now at 27. the number of those accounted for is 191. and unaccounted for, 118. please join me in praying for those who lost their lives and the families who mourn and for all of those who are still waiting. we continue to monitor tropical storm elsa and expect that miami-dade will mostly experience heavy rain and some winds throughout today and tomorrow. i was grateful to have the opportunity to speak with some of the first responders on site last night right after the demolition, before they headed back out to the pile.
out to the pile. on day 12, these men and women have continued their mission, they have the same determination and strength as when they got out on a day one if is a true honor to serve alongside the heros and sheros. from the state, from the federal, and from the international teams, all of our partners have made this historic effort possible. [ speaking spanish ] we have been listening to the mayor updating us on precisely why they had demolished the building on sunday night. the mayor saying they could not access part of the building they
needed to get to to continue the search and rescue. she also indicated that teams are working on that part of the building that they could not get to before the demolition. vaughn hilliard is in surfside at the scene of that condo collapse. vaughn, let s start there, is that what you re seeing? workers there at that part of the bidding, that here to for had been inaccessible? that is exactly right. to what extent to they feel more comfortable sending more of the task force crews back on to that rubble. the whole concern in the last 11 days was the potential reality that those rescue crews were putting their own lives at take. they were working very deliberately on the rubble mounds there not wanting to cause not only a collapse, but
their homes begin to rebuild. fema is here and has been from the beginning and they have been doing an incredible job to sign up families for individual assistance. and we re working with insurance companies to streamline the process of submitting claims as much as ss and we raised millions of dollars thanks to the generosit whelming and it is going to be very, very important to put these funds into these families hands to help them to rebuild and meet their unmet needs. and they have already been getting this assistance. i want to stress that we took every option that we possibly could to look for any pets or animals in the building prior to the demolition. in the days since the collapse,