could be as minimal as 20 plus miles per hour and there could be a downfall of rain, but we know how the storms can work and there is concern which is the very concern that lead to this dramatic decisions. the extent of the questions are still in question. what the wind tleshold is. it was interesting, to also hear danielle talk about the lengths towards those rescue workers, where they went to identify pets before they demolished the building on sunday night. looking under beds and on closets. it is difficult to over state
rescue workers to access parts let s listen in. i welcome to the podium miami-dade county mayor daniela levine cava. thank you. here we are, day 12. it is hard to believe that it is been 12 long days. i m proud to provide an update that last night s demolition of the remaining portion of the champlain towers south was executed exactly as planned. the demolition began at 10:30 p.m. and the building fell as was planned towards collins avenue. only dust landed on the existing pile. and a little over an hour afterward, we received the all clear. and then right around midnight work commenced on the pile and by 1:00 a.m. we were in full search and rescue operation
to collapse an entire apartment building is devastaing decision and it i did not make it lightly. bringing the building down in a controlled manner was important. the area closest to the building was the area that we had not been able to assess and that is where we needed to go. and previously it was not accessible due to the enormous risk to the team of first responders because of the instability of the building. and as we speak, the teams are working on that part of the pile that was not accessible before the building was demolished. the standing structure also posed a threat as the storm approached given the tropical
conducted multiple full sweeps of the building in person, including searching in closets and under beds and other hiding places, in the areas of the building not accessible to the teams, they used ladders on high lift cranes and placed live animal traps on balconies at great personal risk to our first responders. also doorways were opened, other means for pets to escape the building if they were able. we deployed drones with thermal imaging on numerous trips over the rubble pile and also standing in the tower in areas unsafe for search and rescue teams to enter. so i want to say as clearly as i i possibly can and urge our community to understand that we went truly to great lengths to take every step that we could at great risk to our first
of problems with that building impeding the search. so that was one of the impetuses. the other thing is the place that was the pile that was closest to the remaining structure was effectively inak eszable by the search and rescue people. when i went out there this morning, the whole building is now down. they were on that pile that had been difficult for them to access. they re making a lot of progress with the search effort in that part. when they drew this up and told me what was going to happen, obviously the miami dade was made the final call. we were supportive of it. we funded it at the state level. they explained to me how it was going to happen. it would basically fall down in place and low and behold, it fell down in place. if you look around, there was not a lot of debris even right after it coming down. you can still drive a vehicle down the road and then now you wouldn t have even known if you hadn t known that was there that something just came down within the last day.