All remnants of the tragic Surfside building collapse will soon be gone and dumped in a landfill, along with any bodily remains of the 98 deceased victims.
Martin Langesfeld has been protesting the disposal since October 2021, four months after he lost his sister, Nicole Langesfeld, in the collapse on June 24, 2021.
Only 33% of Nicole’s bodily remains have been recovered.
For that reason, Langesfeld says, Miami-Dade County must continue its search.
“There are no words to describe how much pain it would bring to the families knowing that their deceased loved ones are being thrown away as trash,” he said. “We shouldn’t need to beg Miami-Dade County to do the right thing and preserve our loved ones with respect.”
Langesfeld has successfully garnered enough attention and pressure to thrice delay the county’s plans to move the rubble out of its current lot on NW 12th Street in Doral. This time, he says, his contacts aren’t giving in.
“Miami-Dade County deeply sympathizes with the families who lost their loved ones and their homes in an unthinkable tragedy,” said a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Police Department in an email to Biscayne Times. “The county made every effort to continue searching including petitioning the federal government for multiple extensions to the original deadline to remove the debris in order to extend search efforts.”
According to a letter from the federal government to the state, however, another extension was indeed granted. The letter dated Dec. 16, 2022, and sent by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, gives the county until March 31 to continue its searches.
Nevertheless, the county has contracted a hauling company to remove the debris, which is considered hazardous to human health, to an asbestos-permitted landfill in DeSoto County. That process should take roughly three months and is expected to begin on Jan. 31.
In the meantime, the recovery process continues to bring in new findings. Despite claims made more than a year ago that the rubble had been thoroughly searched, the families still receive calls to this day that human remains are being identified.
Just over a week ago, Langesfeld received a call from the medical examiner that his sister’s driver's license had been found. On Jan. 25, her hand was recovered.
It is evident, he says, that the search must continue in order to bring closure to the families who lost loved ones, and that it must be done with care.
Langesfeld was permitted to visit the site just once on a bus from across the street.
“It’s disgusting how they’re treating everything in this recovery process,” he said. “Everything has been rotting outside with no protection for the past year and a half. Trees are growing on the rubble, and cranes are crushing it all. It is truly gut-wrenching to see.
“The county must continue the search; families are begging yet being ignored.”