TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – On Wednesday in South Florida, the Surfside community gathered to mark five years since a condo collapse claimed 98 lives, sparking a massive search and rescue effort from thousands of first responders.
Among the armada of heroes was Florida Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 7, based in Northwest Florida.
Division Chief of Special Operations at the Tallahassee Fire Department, Chief Allen Willis, reflected on the tragedy and its impact 5 years later.
“I mean, it just really, it had a profound effect on my life, and I think about it all the time,” he said.
His collection of challenge coins is a reminder of his work at the Surfside condo collapse in June 2021.
“I remember the travel down there was a 13-hour trek in a convoy,” Willis said. “It just was an eerie feeling, right? One, seeing it and not knowing if the structure is still going to collapse, but knowing that families are in there, people are lost, and we have a job to do.”
The team worked around the clock on 12-hour shifts to find victims and bring closure.
“Remove debris, cutting rebar and concrete, breaking large debris into smaller debris,” Willis explained.
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Congressman Jimmy Patronis was Florida’s Fire Marshal at the time. He says he is proud of his hometown task force.
“You’ve got incredible superheroes right in your own back yard,” he said. “They’re like family. To see Northwest Florida respond to the Miami Heat was something that meant an awful lot to me, being a north Florida guy.”
Willis says thanks to Patronis and others, state task force funding went way up post-Surfside, meaning better equipment and training for when or if a tragedy like this happens again.
“We are lightyears ahead of where we were equipment-wise,” Willis said.
It is also important to remember the mental toll the collapse had on those first responders. Patronis said they saw early retirements statewide in the aftermath of the tragedy.
For Willis, he said meeting the Surfside victim families a year later and reading some names aloud helped him a great deal.
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