After almost a week since the Surfside condo collapse, parishioners are reported to hope that the nine families still missing would survive the tragedy.
The Christian Post said members from Miami Beach's St. Joseph Parish are still hoping that the nine families missing from the collapse of the Champlain Towers would still survive. St. Joseph Parish Director of Formation Gypsy Lodos told The Christian Post in an interview on Monday they are hopeful a miracle will happen.
"We still have that faith because you never know. We've seen it in other tragedies where the most miracles have happened, and even the most difficult situations people have survived for days. So we still have hope. We still do," Lodos said.
Lodos explained that though many of their parishioners reside in the collapsed south tower, being two blocks away from it, several have survived it and have already attended Mass last Sunday. Lodos said those who survived are still in shock and are unable to speak of their experience yet.
"We have parishioners who did make it out safely. I think we're at 12. I've been able to speak to a couple of the families and other people (who) know them," she disclosed. "One of them was very grateful. He said God protected them, that they were guided by Jesus to go down. So they are very grateful for the parish support and glad to be alive here at church and being able to worship."
Since the tragedy, Lodos said they have held prayer vigils in the parish for the tower's residents. Lodos stressed that the parish has hope more of those missing will be recovered.
"You know the last thing we lose is the hope," she stressed, "even when you know there isn't even the hope of finding them alive, or [just] the hope they are reunited in Heaven. We don't know. Only God knows the plans."
The St. Joseph Parish, as per its Facebook page, has also offered bilingual counseling services and children's bereavement to the families of the Surfside tower collapse.
The Christian Post said Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Andy Alvarez echoed the hopes for a "miracle" during his interview on Monday with "Good Morning America" in terms of the "frantic effort" of finding survivors.
"We have found voids within the building that we've been able to penetrate, mostly coming from underneath the basement of what used to be the garage. And we have been able to tunnel through the building. But this is a frantic search to continue to see that hope, that miracle, to see who we could bring out of this building alive," Alvarez pointed out.
On the early morning of Thursday, the south tower of the fully-occupied 12-story condominium in Surfside, Florida collapsed, bringing with it an initial unknown number of residents under a rubble of concrete and steel. Follow-up reports reveal that the Champlain Towers Building Administration has not been attending to the proper upkeep of the property that has already shown water leaking through cracks in its walls as early as 2015 when a lawsuit was filed on it by one of the residents.
The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue were first to respond at the scene deploying 80 of its units for the search and rescue team. They were later assisted by the Miami Police Department who took over the traffic rerouting scheme and control. The Miami-Dade also attended to the inventory of the 1981-constructed tower to have an actual count of its residents that needed to be rescued.
There were 35 initially rescued on Thursday with a total of 99 missing persons, which rose to 150 come Monday along with a toll of 9 deaths. Five additional people were rescued come Monday who were already identified.
Volunteer groups such as the Billy Graham Rapid Rescue Team were among the first of volunteers who responded to the needs of the community, especially on trauma counseling. With them were the World Central Kitchen who provided food for the first responders and the families. These were followed by other volunteers including the all-men group Legendarios, churches, and organizations that even setup a fundraising campaign for the families.
