Nearly 24 hours after a three-story apartment building collapsed in Brooklyn, rescue workers remain locked in a fight to identify and rescue any survivors trapped in the rubble.
The extensive search and rescue operations have involved canine units, helicopters and excavation machinery. So far, eight people have been confirmed dead and over a dozen are injured. Fire officials have said the search efforts are likely to continue for days.
It is not yet clear why the building, in the Flatbush neighborhood, collapsed. But the Fire Department’s search and rescue mission is following a standard playbook, one that dates back to World War II. It has been deployed countless times after similar disasters around the world, including the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and a condo collapse in 2021 in Surfside, Fla., that killed nearly 100 people.
Here’s how these search and rescue operations work.
What happens first?
After determining the basics of the collapsed building — including whether it is residential or commercial — rescuers look for any people who may be trapped on the surface of the wreckage, said Dave Downey, a retired fire chief from Miami-Dade County in Florida who has responded to many disasters involving collapsed buildings, including the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
After that, Mr. Downey said, rescuers try to determine the manner in which the building collapsed, which informs their further search efforts.
If the building is still partially standing and there is open space between the floors, there could be more survivable space for any people trapped inside. Rescuers would then start looking inside these so-called void spaces, “the areas where there’s the greatest chance for survival,” Mr. Downey said.
Search efforts are of course more difficult when a building falls apart in a way that leaves little open space, as happened with the Surfside condo, which collapsed like a pancake, floor by floor, according to Mr. Downey.
What other factors must rescuers account for?
Rescuers need to also consider external factors like the weather. In the case of the Flatbush collapse, rainy conditions on Thursday afternoon may complicate the rescue efforts.
“You want to control any of the utilities, whether it’s gas, whether it’s water, whether it’s power,” Mr. Downey said. “You certainly don’t want water flooding any of these void spaces.”
Water mains were shut off temporarily after the collapse, but by noon on Thursday water service in the area had been restored, according to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Rescuers may also seek to stabilize whatever parts of the building remain standing. That could mean using wood to shore up parts of the structure, allowing workers to access the rubble where more survivors could be trapped.
What technology is used?
When looking for survivors, rescuers tend to use specialized equipment like drones, listening devices and search cameras.
In Brooklyn, the Police Department has deployed drones to capture the scene while members of its aviation unit search from the sky, a police spokeswoman said on Thursday. Officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit were also searching the area with dogs from the K-9 team.
Heavy equipment like grapplers were also being used on Thursday to remove rubble, said Lillian Bonsignore, the fire commissioner.
When does an operation turn to recovery?
Ms. Bonsignore said on Thursday afternoon that the operation was still focused on rescuing survivors. But at a certain point, officials will have to make the difficult choice to shift the operation to recovery, Mr. Downey said.
“When the decision is made that we no longer have persons that have survived, we transition to recovery,” Mr. Downey said.
Such a determination can take days and depends on a complex set of factors. One of the last to be considered is the amount of time that has elapsed since the collapse, Mr. Downey said. More important is the safety of the rescuers, which has to be weighed against the chances that anyone is still alive.
Still, a transition to recovery does not preclude the possibility that survivors will be found. When he was in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Mr. Downey said, his team found a 2-year-old child alive in the rubble of a building eight days after it collapsed.
“We promise, with everything we have, we will not stop working until everyone is rescued or recovered,” Ms. Bonsignore said.
Chelsia Rose Marcius, Caitlyn Freeman and Hurubie Meko contributed reporting.
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