Surfside (US)
President Joe Biden drew on his own experiences with grief and loss to comfort families affected by the Florida condo collapse, telling them to "never give up hope" even as the search for survivors paused early on Thursday, a week after the building came down.
Addressing some families touched by the tragedy, Biden spoke in deeply personal terms as he offered his prayers and support in the private meeting. “I just wish there was something I could do to ease the pain,” he said in a video posted on Instagram by Jacqueline Patoka, a woman close to a couple and their daughter who are still missing.
Few public figures connect as powerfully on grief as Biden, who lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car collision and later an adult son to brain cancer. In the first months of his term, he has drawn on that empathy to console those who have lost loved ones, including the more than 600,000 who have died in the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a quiet voice freighted with emotion, Biden on Thursday described his own despair at having to wait to find out about how family fared after a crisis like the one experienced in Surfside. He spent over 3 hours privately speaking with those grieving, addressing the group first and then moving family to family to listen to their stories.
Meanwhile, Florida officials are working on plans to tear down what’s left of a partially collapsed oceanfront condominium building after concerns about the structure’s instability prompted a 15-hour halt to the search for survivors.
