South Florida marks 5 years since Surfside's Champlain Towers collapse as families still seek answers

Residents, family members and community leaders gathered early Wednesday morning in Surfside to mark five years since the collapse of Champlain Towers South, a tragedy that killed 98 people and forever changed the South Florida community.

The annual Lighting of the Torch ceremony took place at 1:15 a.m., with the torch being lit at 1:22 a.m., the exact time the 12-story beachfront condominium partially collapsed on June 24, 2021. The solemn observance honored the victims, survivors and first responders involved in the unprecedented search and recovery effort.

During the ceremony, one of the victims who was pulled from the collapsed building spoke about how grateful she is for the first responders who save her life.

"We still talk on a regular basis. They were there for my going away party to go to college. They were there for my high school volleyball games," Deven Gonzalez said. . "They have honestly become a second part of my family. I honestly don't know what I would do without them and I am eternally grateful for the support that they gave me that night to continue to go on and the support that they give me today."

First responders were able to save Gonzalez and her mother, but her father was among the 98 lives who were lost that morning.

Later on Wednesday morning, the Town of Surfside hosted its fifth annual remembrance ceremony to honor those who were lost.

Among those were were present for the ceremony were the parents of Anastasia Gromava, one of the victims who was 24 years old, staying at her friend's condo inside Champlain Towers South when the building collapsed.

"I feel like it was yesterday," her mother said. "Of course life continues, but some part of our goes back to five years."

Gromava's parents drove down from Tampa for the ceremony, like they've done every year since the tragedy.

One of the deadliest building failures in U.S. history

The collapse remains one of the deadliest building failures in U.S. history. In the weeks following the disaster, rescue crews worked around the clock at the site before ultimately recovering the remains of all 98 victims. The tragedy prompted changes to building inspection and condominium safety laws in Florida and sparked years of investigations into what caused the structure to fail.

Just days before the fifth anniversary, federal investigators released new findings from their ongoing probe into the collapse. 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology said long-term corrosion and the failure of multiple slab-to-column connections likely contributed to a progressive collapse after weeks of structural deterioration. Investigators said their conclusions are based on two dozen computer simulations conducted over five years, though a final report has not yet been released.

The findings have drawn criticism from some victims' relatives, who say they still lack definitive answers about why the building fell.

As the community marks five years since the collapse, many families say the pain remains fresh, and questions surrounding the disaster continue to linger.