BAY HARBOR ISLANDS, Fla. — Over at Church by the Sea in Bay Harbor Islands, a more than 5-minute drive from the fallen Champlain Towers condo complex, Charlie Newton bowed his head in prayer for the missing and the dead.
Foremost on his mind were Arnie and Myriam Notkin, an older couple who lived on the third floor and who remain unaccounted for after the collapse.
Arnie Notkin, a former physical education teacher at Fienberg-Fischer K-8 Center, was a friend of his parents. When Newton grew older, he and Notkin served together on the board of directors for the Miami Beach Police Athletic League.
“Everyone knows Arnie Notkin,” said Newton, 50, of Surfside, Florida. “They may not know his wife, but they know him. He asserted himself into people’s conversations, but he was very friendly. He wasn’t arrogant or anything. He was very nice, and everybody liked him. He was always willing to go the extra mile to help somebody.”
The devoted physical education teacher, who had a love for the Miami Dolphins, liked to introduce students to all kinds of sports.
“He loved to teach,” Newton said. “He loved to show you how to play something. When you’re a teacher, whether you’re a PE teacher or a math teacher, you love to share your knowledge.”
Inside the church office chapel, worshippers helped each other light white candles to honor the missing and the dead. With tears in their eyes, some joined the chorus in singing “Amazing Grace.”
“I had to dig down deep and try not to allow my emotions to get the best of me,” Newton said. “I’m trying to be strong for other people around me. I’m sure if somebody would have lost it in there, we all would have lost it.”
The death toll rose by just four people, to a total of nine confirmed dead. But after almost four full days of search-and-rescue efforts, more than 150 additional people were still missing, authorities said.
‘He was a peacemaker. He was a joy’:What we know about those missing in the Miami condo building collapse
Before and after look:Champlain Towers South, the Florida building that partially collapsed
For small, close-knit community, the tragedy was hard to bear
The awful wait for news of the missing weighed even on those without a connection to them.
“I personally did not know anybody in the building, but I certainly am good friends with a lot of people that did,” Rev. Robert Asinger said. “So it becomes not just a building collapse. It becomes about Bill or Fred or whoever it is. And it makes it very personal.”
Struck with an urge to help, reverends told almost 40 worshippers that the church had opened a disaster relief fund with $20,000.
“When Parkland happened and when Pulse happened, we prayed but there was a distance,” Rev. Barbara Asinger said. “I think that’s how we survive as human beings. We create distance because we hear so much these days. When you can’t do that anymore, you weep. You weep and then you try to determine how to help.”
Sergio Lozano had dinner with his parents, Gladys and Antonio Lozano, when they said their goodbyes and retreated to their respective condominiums in different towers of the same complex, the Champlain Towers condo complex in Surfside.
Startled by a loud boom, Sergio Lozano stepped out into his balcony and was hit by a staggering sight: billowing smoke and night sky where his parent’s condo building once stood.
“My wife was walking behind me because she was going to help me bring in the patio furniture,” he told WPLG-TV in Miami. “And I tell her, ‘Lola, the building’s not there.’ She’s yelling and saying, ‘What do you mean?’ I go, ‘My parents’ apartment is not there. It’s gone!’”
Family members of residents of the collapsed 12-story building staggered in and out of a family reunification center on Sunday trying to make sense of the tragedy. The family members left DNA samples to identify relatives’ remains and gleaned scraps of information on rescue efforts.
Others clung to hope that rescue teams could still pull survivors from the wreckage. Ashley Dean, traveled from Louisiana to Surfside over the weekend to see if her younger sister, Cassie Stratton, had survived the collapse.
Stratton was on the phone with her husband, Michael, when the building shook then collapsed, Dean told media outlets. She let out a scream as she plunged toward the earth. Stratton remains unaccounted for.
“It’s been extremely agonizing. It’s been painful. It’s very confusing,” Dean told New Orleans’ WVUE-TV. “It’s almost unbelievable.”
For years, Antonio and Gladys Lozano would bicker over who would go first.
In the end, they departed at the same time. The elderly couple, who would have celebrated their 59th anniversary next month, died together in the tower collapse.
Miami-Dade Police recovered their bodies one day apart from each other in the rubble of the South condominium tower, the agency said.
Finding strength through prayer
Toward the back of the church office chapel in Bay Harbor Islands, unlit candles dotted a wooden table. Before Becky Bosch left the room, a gentle flame had been set to most of them.
“It impacts you, even if you don’t know the people who live there,” said Bosch, 52, of Surfside. “I’ve been in that building. I dropped my son off when he was little to go see friends there. I lived right across the street from there on 90th. It’s a very peaceful corner. It’s beautiful.”
As efforts to pull survivors from the rubble continue, her son found strength in prayer.
“I know the whole community would want to be there,” said Aaron Bosch, 22. “I know everybody would want to be there picking up rubble, but it’s not that easy. I think the best thing we can do right now is pray.”
Sergio Lozano said his parents would have celebrated their 59th anniversary on July 21 and had known each other for more than 60 years. The son said that his parents had joked that neither wanted the other one to pass away first because they didn’t want to be without each other.
Sergio said if he was to find solace, it is that if they did not survive the collapse, that they “went together and went quickly,” according to WPLG-TV.
Contributing: Emily Bloch, USA TODAY; The Associated Press.
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