SURFSIDE, Fla. — The sad news comes each day and the pain deepens each time you hear it.
At an evening news briefing Wednesday, officials updated the growing list of confirmed victims in Surfside.
"It is also with great sorrow, real pain, that I have to share with you that two of these were children, aged 4 and 10," Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said.
Amid enormous loss, the ever-growing question remains: How could this happen? A federal team, the National Institute for Standards and Technology will open a full investigation.
"It will take time, possibly a couple of years, but we will not stop until we have determined the likely cause of this tragedy," NIST Director James Olthoff said
NIST was at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They will look at everything, including a 2018 report detailing structural problems at the condo.
"In any building collapse, we would want to understand how the building was designed, how it was constructed, modified and maintained," NIST expert Judith Mistrani-Reiser said of the work ahead. "From the site, we will be interested in samples of the building materials and the local soil conditions."
There are so many questions and the hunt for answers is only beginning.
