Watching, Waiting, Praying

By Yochonon Donn, Surfside, Florida
Photos: Carlos Chattah,  AP Images

Surfside is a sunny town now cloaked in the dark garment of unfathomable agony and interminable waiting. Days after a massive apartment complex mysteriously gave a series of shudders and imploded, this Miami suburb of 5,700 residents has been transformed.

Much of Collins Avenue, the miles-long first main boulevard off the beach, containing dozens of beachfront hotel entrances, restaurants, and lots of shopping, is now blocked off, filled instead by hundreds of emergency vehicles flashing red, blue, and white lights, yellow crime scene tape, and dozens of white parasols where members of the international media spend their days waiting for things to happen.

As I walk down the avenue, people stop and offer their prayers. Neon signs declaring “Prayers for Our Surfside Neighbors” are ubiquitous. A short, elderly woman with a Christian symbol dangling from her neck stops me, cups her palms heavenward, and urges me to “pray, pray.” As I enter the Grand Beach Hotel, housing family members of those missing, a tall man with a graying goatee and a cap identifying him as a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars walks up the steep incline to the hotel. He says he’s a Baptist pastor and wants to pray with the relatives.