After Surfside horror, we may never look at beach condo living in Florida the same way | Opinion

A little piece of what it means to live in South Florida, too, has been lost to the collapse and demolition of Champlain Towers South in Surfside.

We may never look at beachfront condo living in the same innocent way again, with the heart of a poet yearning for the sea and the wallet of a professional needing to decompress, no questions asked.

Now, we’ve got nothing but questions and demands.

After Surfside collapse, some said, ‘Not now.’ But Levine Cava knows she must be a leader | Opinion

Miami Beach condo living

For days, I’ve been trying to work through the horror of families like mine once was, blissfully sleeping to the sound of ocean waves, plunging along with their homes into an abyss of rubble and death.

For days, I’ve been trying to put an end to anxiety dreams by looking back, remembering the good and the bad of those years of beachfront condo living in Miami Beach.

If there’s such a thing as belated PTSD from living in an old building by the sea, I have it.

For a moment, shocked and without enough facts early on the morning of June 24, my first thought was that the fallen condo building was “my building,” as I still call the oceanfront haven in Mid-Beach where I spent some of the most consequential days of my life.

There was reason behind the me-ism of my initial reaction.

More than 30 years ago, I bought a beachfront condo in a building similar to Champlain Towers South, now the site of one of the worst disasters in Florida and U.S. history.

Built in 1964, 16 stories high and older than Champlain, its 300-plus rental apartments were being converted into condos. I saw the sign advertising the remodel and sale as I drove by.

I walked in, fell in love, and was instantly sold on the romantic idea of spending my weekends with the sky, sand and sea meeting at my windows and my three little girls getting a weekly dose of what had been my beloved summer vacations in Varadero during my childhood.

But mine is a cautionary tale.

At first, it was paradise, but the more time I spent there, the more uncertain I became. On windy days, I felt the building swaying but I was told this was normal. On high tide days, sea water accumulated in the underground parking — and this was back in the early ‘90s, when climate change wasn’t common parlance.

Still, when it became obvious the condo conversion had been mostly cosmetic, I remodeled the bathroom. When my leather purses rotted, I tried household remedies in a foolish attempt to outrace humidity. When I ran out of milk and I couldn’t come out of my house because boat show traffic had turned Collins Avenue into a parking lot, I said, enough.

But I couldn’t let go until, in a conversation with the building’s chief maintenance man, I told him I was going to rent it so I could keep it and one day retire here.

“Get that thought off your head!” he said in Spanish. “This building won’t be standing by then.”

And, since June 24, I can’t get his fateful words out of my mind.

After Surfside, real estate speculation

Now our grieving community waits for news of loved ones found, the hope of life all but lost.

And condo dwellers in Florida — until now a seller’s market — are learning from Surfside’s tragedy. Some are wondering if they should sell and flee; others, who are buying, are demanding to see condo association documents.

I can’t help but find the real estate speculation over the tragic collapse of the Champlain Towers predictable — and tacky.

But this is the American way.

The bodies aren’t all yet found, identified and buried, yet here we are, already assessing the anxiety and possible economic damage to a condo market that, before the horror, was hot as the sand in summer.

Change the way we do things we must; it’s the only way through the grief.

Condo collapse is an urgent alert that old Florida structures need auditing | Opinion

Demand accountability from city building officials and departments who have a lot of audits and investigations to conduct, and not only of buildings but employees, too. Demand that lawmakers do better to protect consumers and address all of the failures of the condo association system that brought us the Champlain devastation.

And please, seek out and listen to the handymen. They know these buildings inside out.

Two days before condo collapse, a pool contractor photographed this damage in garage

If Florida politicians do take the right action to ensure the safety of buildings, the market will bounce back.

We don’t stop flying because some airplanes crash and, ultimately, we won’t stop yearning for sea-view living because an old building collapsed, leaving a rising death toll of 46, as of this writing, and 94 still missing. Or, because lax enforcement has allowed the maintenance of other buildings to be neglected, and are being shut down, too.

Humanity is more flawed than buildings.

People like me will succumb to the lure of the sea, to the beauty of our Miami Beach, to the dream of our place in the sun.