The call came in as a fire alarm.
But when Surfside Police Officer Craig Lovellette arrived to Champlain Towers South condo just before 1:30 a.m. on June 24, he realized that the thickness in the air wasn’t smoke. It was debris kicked up into the sky.
“We went to the screams of the people and we were trying to figure out where we can go to help them,” Lovellette told reporters Thursday, a week later, after he and his colleagues met with President Joe Biden and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Lovellette, who responded to the building collapse with Officers Ariol Lage and Kemuel Gambirazio, said the trio rushed to the south side of the building looking for survivors. But the soot was so thick that even flashlights couldn’t cut through it.
“It’s getting in our eyes; we had to keep wiping our eyes,” said Lovellette, who was the acting sergeant on the scene. He said the building’s lights were off and the garage had collapsed.
When fire rescue arrived, Lage and Gambirazio went to the front of the building to work with firefighters helping residents who got out of the building. Lovellette stayed behind, trying to find someone to save, he said. He couldn’t see anyone on the balconies, so he looked around the rubble.
“I was looking for anyone in that debris on the south side of the building. There was nobody there. There was nobody. At that moment, it was just a complete shock.”
Back at police headquarters of the small town, Officer Joseph Matthews said he was working as dispatcher when he started getting flooded with calls — from people inside the building and family members across the country.
“People called and said, ‘Is there an earthquake?’ ”
He received hundreds of calls over his six- to seven-hour shift alone working the phones. One caller, Mike Stratton, had been speaking with his wife, Cassie, before he called 911. Cassie told him that the building was shaking and the pool deck had collapsed. Then the line went dead.
“He called me, he was in Washington,” Matthews said. “He kept calling me.”
They spoke in 20-minute increments. Mike Stratton talked about Cassie, about how much he loves living in Surfside, about how he was away on a business trip to Washington, D.C.
Matthews had no updates to offer.
“I said, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ That’s the only thing I could tell this man. I just felt so bad that I couldn’t do anything for him.”
So he told Stratton to go to the airport.
The next day, they met at the Surfside Community Center, which had been set up as a family reunification center. He also met Cassie’s mother.
“It was very emotional to me,” Matthews said.
Surfside Police, a department of 31 sworn officers, was the first agency on the scene. They were there “within seconds,” Capt. John Healy said.
“At that time, we had no idea what was going on,” he said.
Firefighters arriving at the building collapse used cherry pickers to go floor by floor trying to rescue residents still trapped on their balconies. Police evacuated the buildings to the south and north of the fallen tower.
Healy, who said some of his friends died in the collapse, said he and his wife have not yet had time to grieve. Since the collapse, which Healy responded to as well, he said police have been working 12-hour shifts.
“We’ll get to that point sooner or later down the road. Right now we’re here to try to do everything possible to save lives and rescue any people that we can. We will continue to fight until we cannot continue any longer.”
Healy said he and each of the officers met with President Biden individually.
“We spent a few minutes with him and he offered his gratitude and appreciation for not only us but for all the first responders that are here,” he said.
“His heartfelt comments were well-taken,” he later said.
Officer Gambirazio said there were “no words to describe” the support Biden showed to Surfside police at their meeting Thursday.
“My fellow officer there and I experienced something very ... I’m at a loss for words. I really can’t speak on it too much just because I haven’t had my own time to process it. It’s been a rough few days.”
This story was originally published July 01, 2021 2:57 PM.
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