Sacramento Search And Rescue Team Sends 2 To Florida

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Two members of the Sacramento Urban Search and Rescue team arrived in Florida Saturday morning to help with the recovery efforts at the Surfside condominium collapse.

Demolition workers are planning to bring down the rest of a partially collapsed building in South Florida ahead of an approaching storm that could cause the rest of the structure to come crashing down, experts warn. A top Miami-Dade fire official tells relatives of people missing in the rubble that workers plan to demolish the remainder of the building as soon as Sunday.

Gov. Ron DeSantis says it is structurally unsound and bringing it down will protect rescuers. The confirmed death toll from the collapse has risen to 24 with the discovery of two more bodies in the rubble.

Sacramento Fire Department structural engineers Zachary Siviglia and Jon Sampson will assist with the recovery efforts, according to a Department spokesperson.

The pair is part of the Urban Search and Rescue California Taskforce 7 based in Sacramento and will work directly with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Florida.

Their deployment to Seaside was approved by the state Office of Emergency Service on Friday. They are joined by other search and rescue task forces based in Orange County and San Diego.

Since 1992, California-based taskforces have been deployed to numerous worldwide disasters including the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the 2017 Mexico City earthquake.