Shattered at Surfside: A brother's journey

For three weeks my family experienced an unimaginable nightmare from which we could not wake.

On June 24, 2021, my world ended as I knew it.

At 3 a.m., my mother received a news notification that a building had collapsed by Miami Beach. She had a mother’s instinct that this was the building Nicky and Luis lived in — my beautiful 26-year-old sister and her 28-year-old husband. We immediately drove to Surfside where my sister’s building once stood and saw an image that never stops invading my mind: half a building.

I remember counting the floors up, trying to figure out if apartment 804 was stil...