Across the street, there’s a wall with 98 names on it.
They are the people who died when the Champlain Towers building suddenly collapsed two years ago, on June 24, 2021. The images from that day showing half of a condo tower reduced to rubble are still mind-boggling, and for the victims, the video and pictures are indelible reminders of loss.
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“It’s just pain now, it’s just sadness, constant sadness that lives with us,” said Ronit Felszer, whose son, Ilan Naibryf, died in the collapse.
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Pablo Rodriguez lost his mom, Elena Blasser, and his grandmother, Elena Chavez. I asked him if after two years, had the pain lessened?
“Hasn’t really lessened, it’s a different kind of pain,” Rodriguez said.
He’s haunted by knowing his son will grow up without them, and by his inability to come to terms with how they died. Buildings, Rodriguez said, don’t just fall down.
“I can’t wrap my head around what happened, I still can’t process the actual effect of what happened, it’s just dealing with the aftermath,” Rodriguez said.
The aftermath for the Naibryf family means trying to move forward without Ilan, their forever 21-year-old son and brother, a brilliant student at the University of Chicago. The family feels broken.
“But there is no way to fix it, so it’s part of our scars, and we see it every day,” said Ilan’s father, Carlos Naibryf.
Ilan’s mom said she learned that what she heard from a grief counselor is painfully true.
“Sadness and depression are almost identical,” Felszer said. “They mirror each other, the difference is with depression, you can treat it; with sadness due to grief, is untreatable.”
Steve Rosenthal lost everything in the collapse except what’s most important, his life.
“Matter of fact, these jeans that I’m wearing right now is what I was rescued in,” he said.
Rosenthal was sleeping when he thought an earthquake had struck.
“My neighbors are yelling help me, help me, get me out, and the destruction literally stopped 10 feet from the 05 line, my unit, it was unbelievable, I don’t know how it just stopped,” Rosenthal explains.
Now he struggles with the big, existential question:
“I’m not a doctor, I’m not finding a cure for cancer, I don’t have any children or grandchildren that I have to support, so why was I spared when doctors and parents and children and young people died? There’s no answer to that,” he said.
For survivors and victims, Surfside, and especially the building’s site, will always represent the worst moments of their lives.
“I tear up,” Rodriguez said. “It’s very difficult for me to even pass by the area, let alone see the site and know that’s where we lost them.”
Felszer has a similar reaction.
“And we just drove by coming this way, and that pit in your stomach, it’s going back in time,” she said. “It’s gotten harder.”
