and he found an exploded rebar in the concrete equipment room on the south side of the underground garage and took pictures and sent them to his boss because it was so alarming. we have team coverage this morning following the aftermath of this tragedy. let s begin with rosa flores on the scene. what stands out to you when reading this full letter that was just three months ago with these warnings. reporter: what stands out to me, poppy, is that what was warned in the 2018 structural report is exactly what transpired in the years and months later. and i can t even begin to process how the families are dealing with this right now because, of course, in 2018 we ve learned that an official told residents at a condo association meeting that the building was okay, was in good condition.
buildings that have not yet completed their certification process. that s our priority right now. just last night our building officer notified one of those properties. a building in northeast dade that four balconies must be placed to residents due to safety conditions. reporter: balconies that are key component of this. we saw balconies that had fallen off. we were given a tour a short time ago of the towers north complex. the identical build ing they go them out of there because they were accumliting moisture and other damage and added to the weight of those balconibalconie. balconies are a key component.
building. you start taking care of it the day it was built when you first occupy it. so the four year was only gives the building official the requirement that some engineers wanting to certify the building has been taken care of, and is okay to go on. if the building official does not get that certification, they send out a violation that said we haven t gotten it yet and of course they have the police power, the billing official has the if they don t get the certification, then they could withdraw the occupancy permit and close the building down and that is the way the system is supposed to work. just again for our viewers, you re working right now to figure out what happened. who hired you? well, i ve been hired by attorneys who represent people or entities i m not sure who they are, but that is what happens, but essentially any engineer that is going to be working on this, they ll be many, many engineers, all hired
jobs for many of the rescuers. that is what they re looking at right now. that is why this trench is so valuable. it is making it safer and more accessible to try to do this grim, grim work. tom, thank you so much for explaining it to us and there are heroes every day and night doing that work. we appreciate it. the weather is going to make it a lot harder forethem in the next few days. falling debris may make matters more difficult. this is according to the mayor of surfside, florida, listen to what he said. they put a little bit of a line on the pile of debris because they did have overnight, they did have some stuff falling down from the building that is still standing. and that is going to have to be addressed. one of the many dangers they re facing, my next guest said searching for survivors in florida in this collapse also face health risks to some of those first responders following the 9/11 attacks on world trade center here in new york. i m joined by former fdny
by different entities and the idea is that engineers will get together and they ll compare notes and they ll compare the expertise and come up eventually with a consensus about exactly what happened. okay. let me ask you this, john, because had our colleague brian todd going out with an inspection team in another building in the area where they ve seen similar signs, rusting rebar, et cetera. just as a layman here, i m curious, how one repairs something like that? if it is rebar within concrete, and in an existing structure, people are living above it, how do you even fix something like that. well we have a lot of that going on right now. but it just depends upon what kind of member is involved. is it a column holding up the building? is it a critical beam? or is it a balcony area? most of this could be fixed if it is not allowed to go on with the building occupied. but in some instances where it