The University of Miami has provided an extensive array of services, resources, and academic expertise to support the Surfside recovery operation, the community, and aggrieved families.
Obed Frometa, a lieutenant with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Task Force 1 who gathers and packages vital debris data, was among the first responders on the scene the morning of the disaster. By midday, he would be joined by Howard Lieberman, an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at the Miller School of Medicine, who was deployed to the site as the medical manager of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Urban Search and Rescue Team/Florida Task Force 1. In his role, Lieberman served to treat the injured and to oversee the medical well-being of team members who navigated the precarious piles of rubble and debris in search of survivors.
Another University physician, Brandon Parker, an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, worked at the site as medical team manager of the City of Miami’s South Florida Urban Search and Rescue Team/Florida Task Force 2.
Pediatric critical care physician G. Patricia Cantwell joined Parker in Surfside, contributing what he described as “tremendous experience and insight” to the effort. A longtime veteran of Task Force 2, Cantwell has been deployed to disaster areas both at home and abroad, including Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the devastating 2010 earthquake.
On the medical campus, Vincent J. Torres, director of emergency management for the University of Miami Health System, and his Hospital Incident Command Team sprang into action as soon as they got word of the disaster, ordering additional liters of blood and ensuring that adequate medicines were in place in UHealth Tower’s emergency department. Elyzabeth Estrada, manager of emergency preparedness for UHealth, volunteered at the site of the collapse, supporting Miami-Dade County’s Office of Emergency Management.
Using high-tech sensors, Naresh Kumar, an associate professor of environmental health in the Department of Public Health Sciences, assisted first responders in monitoring levels of particulate matter—a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets—produced by the collapsed building.
The Gordon Center for Simulation and Innovation in Medical Education has taught advanced practice interventions to firefighters and paramedics in the field for decades. Frometa, Lieberman, and other members of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Florida Task Force 1 credited that extensive training with preparing them to manage the trauma and devastation in Surfside.
More than 18,000 first responders and front-line workers from across Florida train at the center each year. Countless nursing and medical students, physicians, physician assistants, nurses, paramedics, firefighters, and instructors worldwide have all received their essential disaster training at the center during its 40-year history.
University demographer Ira Sheskin, who has been documenting the changes in South Florida Jewish communities for four decades, was much in demand in the days and weeks following the tragedy.
As one of the nation’s preeminent scholars of U.S. Jewish life and migration, Sheskin was deluged with phone calls and emails from reporters around the country and the world seeking his insights to the response of the close-knit Jewish community of Surfside.
In the wake of the collapse of Champlain Towers South, the Florida Bar set up task forces to explore how to promote more responsible condo management and safety.
Bill Sklar, B.B.A. ’77, J.D. ’80, a long-standing adjunct professor at the School of Law who has taught condo law for several decades, was named chair of the Condominium Law and Policy Life Safety Task Force of the Bar’s Real Property, Probate, and Trust Law Section.
“Our mission is to review all aspects of Florida Condominium Law to determine if any changes are necessary that could prevent this terrible tragedy from recurring,” Sklar explains.
He says the group is committed to critical reforms regarding inspection and certifications.
Members of the ’Canes football team and staff members were among many University volunteers who supported the recovery operation by providing food and water for first responders.
The players’ efforts were coordinated through Second Spoon, a student-athlete nonprofit organization that delivers meals to hungry families in Miami and other cities.
—Robert C. Jones Jr. and Michael R. Malone