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Really just want to see our mom again. It is heartbreaking. It is agonizing. We are live on the ground there. Were also live with the other big headline today, in a few hours the sentencing of Derek Chauvin for the murder of vladimir putin. George floyd. What we know about the judge, where he might land and what one viewer is telling nbc news with the attorney for the floyd family live on the show in a couple of minutes. Good morning, im Hallie Jackson in washington on this busy friday, along with our nbc news team in surfside, florida. Kerry, we heard from officials not too long ago this morning and i was struck by the notes of optimism they were hitting, that they still have hope even with some of these frankly pretty grim numbers that were getting, a jump in the number of people unaccounted for, up to 159. It is a get punch. Reporter it is a gut punch. The confirmation of four people who died inside the rubble and the rescue teams on this have been working round the clock are being hit with the rain that just hit here and it has been like that several times. During the 3 plus hours dealing with the catastrophic failure of a building. The efforts are under way and its important to say they are still calling this Search And Rescue. They are not calling it recovery. Of the four people who have been pulled from the rubble, those bodies have been taken to the medical examiners office. They will have to do proper identification. Remember that many of the people who were here are seasonal residents and here or visitors from argentina as visitors, paraguy, some back and forth from venezuela and israel. This is predominantly a jewish area so the Identification Information when it collapses and you pull somebody out, happened at 1 30 in the morning. People dont have passports and Drivers Licenses with them. They have that challenge of identifying who is who, hallie, but the process here about saying that this is a continued effort to have Search And Rescue is to keep that hope alive. Lets hear what the may yoor had to say. Well continue Search And Rescue, because we still have hope that we will find people alive, that is exactly why were continuing and that is why were using our dogs and our sonar, and Everything Possible to seek places where there may still be people to be found. Reporter you heard the equipment that the mayor talked that the Fire Department, Search And Rescue is using on top of that, they have brought in reinforcements from the city of miamis Fire Department and six other Fire Departments around the state that have experience in urban Search And Rescue. Yesterday the Assistant Chief here those on the scene heard tapping and that tapping indicated to them on the scene that somebody was inside trying to communicate. They are no longer calling it a tapping sound, they are hearing sounds, but theyre not calling it a tapping, and it may be something as simple as a broken pipe with water just dripping. Hallie . Which is hard to hear for people who are Still Holding out hope here. Tom, weve been talking about the numbers here. There are people behind these numbers, Family Members. You and kerry have been talking with them and it is so difficult to hear them talk. I know not to put you on the spot, you know this community really well, tom. You understand, you know people who live here. Youve grown up and reported in this area for a long time. Talk to me about what youve been hearing from those Family Members and what youve been hearing from your friends in the area this morning. Its incredibly sad. The families are in a state of shock, some devastated, some Still Holding out hope. When you look at the disaster behind me, the collapse of an entire tower in surfside, and these families have seen the video that youve seen, theyve seen the Surveillance Video and some of them are Still Holding out hope and that is pretty impressive, because when you see that video and the number you said 159 people still unaccounted for, its really hard to understand. I asked the mayor if this was still a Search And Rescue operation and she said it was and i asked her if there was any proof to think that people were still alive and she says all they have is hope. The excavator is pulling off loose balconies. Firefighters are risking their lives. This is a very dangerous situation. I do know this community. I grew one a lot of the families that happen to live here, families from miami, cubanAmerican Families. We went to the same church together, to the same elementary school. I went to school with their kids. These are good mothers, a group of three grandmothers all close friends, went to an art exhibit in miami, a popular art exhibit thats going on right now. Its our understanding one of the grandmothers owned a condo in surfside and some of the grandmothers you could imagine theyre close friends, why dont we sleep over the condo. All three grandmothers right now are missing. P. J. Rodriguez whose mother and grandmother inside the building. The night before the collapse a strange sound woke her up from her sleep around 3 00 in the morning and sounded like the building was creaking. He said dont worry and the next night the Building Collapsed. Heres what he had to say after he saw the horrific surveillance footage. Hope just disintegrated at that point when we see the video showing the actual tower collapsing. You know, we dont have official word so i dont want to say its completely hopeless but after seeing the video, its not a lot of hope. She was amazing, and then my son is, thats the hardest part right now. He keeps asking me whens she coming over because he saw the footage this morning. Reporter p. J. Was telling me as you heard there his son had seen the footage. He loved his grandmother so much and hoping she comes back so they can go in the pool but he has pretty much lost all hope. He has seen the video. They were on the 11th floor. When you see that video its just so hard to understand, hallie. I really do admire the families that still are praying and have hope. This is the excavator. Theres a very, very active situation. Theres a debris cloud, piece of building fly. The excavator is taking off chunks to try to stabilize the building . Reporter our team is trying to figure this out. They havent explained it to us yet. Theyre pulling pieces off of the tower that did not go down. Theyre pulling on balconies, pulling off railings, all very strange to us because we understand they are still searching that Debris Mountain that is underneath on the bottom so some of the stuff is falling on top of that mountain. They tell us Structural Engineers are working with the firefighters who again i cant stress enough, youve seen the video, going into this garage, the walls are caving in and trying to find anything and again, pieces of this building are falling on top of that debris field so its an active, its a confuing and dangerous situation here. All the families want answers and every minute that goes by, its just you feel less and less hope. Kerry, let me have you jump in here. Theres also a huge question, we dont have the answer to this and probably not going to know for a while, how in the heck did this happen . How in the world does this building just collapse in an instant overnight . We still dont know the reason. Are we any closer to at least getting that, kerry . Reporter no, we only have people who are going to speculate and it will take forensic engineers to look at it. We know there had recently been a 15 million assessment on the kond minute condominium, the people were going to share in the expense of a 15 million renovation. 40 years a building is having a State Inspection which was under way. Its important to note the area that collapsed faces the atlantic ocean, thats where the salt spray comes from. It is common for buildings along the beach to have concrete restoration because of the salt spray, you cant see, hardly enfeel but its there, unless there happens to be a storm, migrates through the concord and can hit the rebar, the steel inside which is what holds the Structural Integrity together of a building. So once they get through what theyre dealing with now, search and recovery, then they will eventually be able to look at the pieces and see if they find in the Forensic Research of what actually happened by analyzing the debris. I might also note one of the things that may seem complicated by seeing this equipment right now taking out parts and parts that are falling, and et cetera, what theyre attempting to do from my conversation with the miamidade Fire Department is, theyre attempting to secure the possibility of this actually falling on its own, what remains there falling on its own, and so it seems counter intuitive having something come crashing down if it comes crashing down but having it out of the way as opposed to removing a piece, kind of like that game of jenga, you pull something out and hope it doesnt fall, it could, theyre trying to stabilize what might fall so that then they can begin doing this effort with super heavy equipment and pulling off off the top. Up until this point the only access point has been underneath and while theyve been tunnelling coming up from the garage they would like to attack this from the surface and thats what were looking at right now according to what the Fire Department officials have been telling me. As we said, we are 30 hours into this thing. It is still so active. Kerry sanders and tom llamas thank you. Dr. Lieberman, thank you very much for being. Us. I know youve been at the scene. Can you tell us what your experience has been like there . Yes. So i got here i guess it was yesterday probably around 1 00 p. M. I came on scene for a Trauma Surgeon. A colleague of mine is on scene the night before so i came to relieve him and for the first few hours in that capacity here as Trauma Surgeon for Jackson Memorial hospital. Around 7 00 p. M. We got the official deployment from miamidade fire rescue, urban Search And Rescue Task Force One to deploy so i kind of switched roles from Trauma Surgeon at Ryder Trauma Center to medical manager for the miamidade fire rescue, urban Search And Rescue and basically the pictures of what youre showing your viewers says it all, 12story building reduced to about four stories and pretty much where were looking at. Youre preparing for Blood Infusions in case there are survivors found who need immediate help. Tell us about that. We have a Good Relationship with Jackson Memorial hospital and miamidade fire rescue. We do a lot of projects together, and we collaborate really, really well. So we obtained blood from our blood bank at the hospital. Its all been stored in a cooler or a fridge rather and we have it here, should we need it, we could always get new blood from the hospital if we need it, but at this point, we havent had to use any blood. This is a difficult question, are you hopeful that you will be able to that there will be somebody you can find or at this point given where we are in the process, what is your sense of optimism, i should ask, doctor, based on your professional opinion of what youve seen . You never give up hope. Patients coming into the hospital i thought had no prognosis and wouldnt survive and proven me wrong and left the hospital. The same thing here. Everyone here is working this as Search And Rescue. No one has given up. Everyone is working exceptionally hard. The people that im working with, urban Search And Rescue team, some of the best people for the job, theyre absolutely amazing. They impress me every day that i work with them and no one has given up hope and were just doing our job. I understand that you also are responsible, are involved with the actual responders, the safety and wellbeing. They almost have a superhuman strength to keep going even in the face of all this. Yes. Thats, you know, it comes with the job working crazy hours, no sleep, nonstop. Some of us are going on 25, 26, 27 hours right now. My responsibility is the wellbeing and safety of the task force and all the people who are here searching, and thats my main concern, that they stay safe and they dont need my help. Doctor, i think we have an audio issue there, dr. Howard lieberman were glad you were able to take a couple minutes out of a difficult and very busy morning the last 26 hours or so for you. Thank you. Well bring you any news from the search for survivors as it happens and keeping the eye on the potential for more Breaking News, live on scene and bring you anything as we get it. Were following another big headline today, former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin set to be sentenced a few hours from now. The attorney for George Floyds family is with us about what justice will look like in in instance. 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Behind me it is open to traffic and so much of this commute had been barricaded for weeks, even months before this verdict came down, a lot of change has happened in minneapolis over the last two months. Looking ahead to this afternoon the sentencing hearing. Derek chauvin faces a maximum of up to 40 years in prison. Prosecutors are asking for 30 years behind bars. The defense wants probation and time served but Derek Chauvin sentencing guidelines for seconddegree murder are usually between 10 and 15 years behind bars. Many legal experts say hes likely to get more because the judge agreed there were aggravating factors in the case, chauvin committed his crime in front of children. We did seek with a juror who was present in the room for the Jury Deliberation and everything is sinking in for her, more than two months, journey howard, she told us the key piece of evidence in this case was dr. Martin tobin, the world renowned pulmonologist. Dr. Tobins was huge, also the chief of police hearing him speak and say definitively this is not what we train, not what we teach, this is not what we do here. This is against our poliies as caretakers. In our custody and care and that was not the case. Reporter the historic nature is sinking in for her. I asked her what she thought an appropriate punishment for Derek Chauvin would be, she declined to answer and said shed leave that up to the judge Gabe Gutierrez live in minneapolis, thank you. Benjamin crump thank you for being back on the show. Good morning. Thank you for having me. You heard gabe lay out the prosecution is looking for 30 years behind bars for chauvin, the defense wants probation and time ser