Miami building demolition: What happened to the pets trapped inside the building?

A woman presented to the rostrum a request to save a pet that was stranded in the wreckage of the Champlain Towers South building, which they denied.

On the night of Sunday, July 4, authorities detonated explosives inserted into holes in the still standing portion of the Surfside condo.

The lawyer Paula Phillips, legal representative of Stacey Karron, filed the request on the Miami-Dade circuit at 9:30 pm on Sunday, in which they asked to enter the building to save a pet, of which the breed is unknown, however they assume it would be Coco, a cat who lived on the fourth floor with an 89-year-old woman and her daughter, according to information from Miami Herald.

“They understand the risk. They understand that the building can collapse at any moment,” tried to argue the lawyer Phillips.

Stacey Karron said she volunteered to rescue pets that might still be alive.

Judge Michael Hanzman denied the request and said he did not want to stop the decision to demolish the building. The hearing concluded around 10:00 pm on Sunday, and around 10:30 pm the explosives were detonated.

“My goal was to go there and try to rescue the pets if they let me. I have experience with animal rescue and I volunteered to enter.” Karron commented.

During the hearing, the attorney Dave Murray objected to Karron’s notion, arguing that the building was already loaded with explosives and that in order for her to enter, the rescue teams would have to risk their lives even more since they would be forced to re-enter to remove the detonations.

According to the newspaper New York Post, Murray commented that the county had made various efforts to rescue the surviving animals since the collapse of June 24.

Attorney Murray commented that the county had made various efforts to rescue the surviving animals.

The mayor Levine Cava reported that rescuers didn’t find any pets as they did extensive searches of the remaining building, including three full sweeps, using animal life traps and thermal technology.

On the other hand, Dahlia Kanes, director of the Miami Coalition against the Specific Legislation of Breeds, indicated that her organization estimates that several dogs and cats, a guinea pig and some parakeets were trapped in the building.

Kanes told the Miami Herald that she had talked to a woman who had not yet found her dog and her two cats, who were in the living room when the building collapsed.

The mayor reported that rescuers used various methods to search for pets.

The causes of the collapse of the Champlain Towers are under investigation, which a legal battle has started seeking compensation for damages from some of the residents in the residential building, built in 1981.

The building association’s board of directors has said it will appoint an “independent administrator to oversee the legal and claims process”.

As learned from documents in the Surfside Mayor’s records, the building had structural problems that were detected in 2018 by an engineering firm and whose expensive recommended repairs had not been fully addressed.

The provisional number of missing persons due to the partial collapse of the residential building was 118, while the number of people located is 191, according to recent official accounting.