Champlain Towers South Condominium, Sunrise, FL
As we woke up this past Thursday morning (June 24) our hearts broke as we saw the devastation of Champlain Towers Condo in Surfside, Florida “pancake” collapse. I immediately thought of Senator Jason Pizzo as this condo building is in his district. Senator Pizzo has 560,000 constituents and he has made it his mission to know and help everyone of them. It is the same Jason Pizzo who gave back every dollar he earned during the height of COVID unemployment claims crisis last year to those who needed it the most to pay their rent, buy groceries and pay their utility bill.
It’s the same Jason Pizzo who pressed a national accounting firm in public hearings about the failure of the unemployment compensation computer system and asked the company to provide free of charge upgrades or a rewrite of the system because it was the right thing to do to help Floridians who desperately tried to get their benefits until they could get a job. So when I saw the pictures of the destruction, I went to Senator Pizzo’s Facebook page and I am asking each of you to listen to his CNN TV interview. He talks about absolute desperation, destruction and despair. He has been leading the effort to help those find the names of those unaccounted for, and on social media you can see their faces and pray for their safety. I am also closely following our state’s incredible emergency manager Kevin Guthrie who has his “entire team in Tallahassee activated to assist and support as needed.”
Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie
Senator Pizzo said while on camera that family members keep going back and forth and they just want to peel rubble themselves but they see “floor slabs on top of each other and what seems like inaction” as the rescue workers pick through the wreckage. Many of our readers have witnessed first-hand Mother Nature’s wind, storm, water, and tornado wrath unleashed on structures. But we haven’t see an unexplained collapse and disintegration of a building into a smoldering heap of twisted metal and concrete as though a dynamite blast was intended to implode it. I have taken countless calls and had emails of questions like, “what happened?” and “how will an insurance policy play into this?” and “how do we help these poor family members?” I reached to the Red Cross who guided me to this webpage.
As we all stay glued to the news with our hopes of survivors coming forth, we must realize that life is precious and can be changed in an instant. Please call one person today – don’t email or instant message or tweet – call someone or go to their house and tell them you care about them and are grateful for them. I for one am grateful for all of you.
Prayerfully,
Lisa
LMA Newsletter of 6-28-21
