Building collapse surfside Miami Florida

agreer

Thu, Jun 24 2021, 9:59 pm

amother [ Chicory ] wrote:

No. No. I didn't say it's a normal thing. It is a crazy tragedy and not something one would expect ever.

I said Meron was abnormal in a way that didn't make sense how so many died, just from falling over each others.

I'm not lessening Florida. Just responding to the poster that asked why ppl took Meron worse than this.

All of these tragedies (this, Meron, Stolin) have one very abnormal thing in common: the victims were crushed to death.

That's not a normal way to go. Not for large groups of people.

There is something very alarming about that, and I definitely do think there's a message being given, one that we obviously haven't learned yet.

But what is it?! That is the question.

I was traumatized by Meron. Now, whenever my kids are roughhousing, I get so anxious and find myself yelling, "Don't crush him/cover his face!" with a lot more fear than I used to.

This Florida news is also traumatic for me. Can you imagine, all those people going to bed, and then whoosh. Falling down, down, down with heavy sheets of floor and ceiling and furniture falling on top of them?! It's a horrible, terrible image in my mind. Beyond tragic.

All I can think of is to do teshuva, every single day and night before bed, because we just don't know.... but that's always the case.... this idea of being "crushed" is new and awful and I'm certain significant.

↑ Rappel

Thu, Jun 24 2021, 10:56 pm

agreer wrote:

Maybe there was supposed to be a major earthquake, and instead G-d in His kindness broke up the tragedy into a bunch of littler ones so we could handle them?

etky ↓

Thu, Jun 24 2021, 10:57 pm

agreer wrote:

It's not new.
It's exactly what happens in earthquakes and mudslides when buildings collapse and it has been around since antiquity.
On Yom Kippur in chazarat hashatz of Musaf there is a recounting of a prayer that the Cohen Gadol would say ועל אנשי השרון היה מתפלל - יהי רצון שלא יהיו בתיהם קבריהם. Their homes were in constant danger of collapse because of the heavy rainfall in that area and the marshy ground (unfortunately we still have related problems in this part of Israel during the winter...).
I think it's just very traumatic to actually see the results with our own eyes through electronic media. And since our modern world is so interconnected we get to 'know' the victims even if we never knew them IRL. That is the emotional price that we pay every day (because there are always catastrophes of all sorts all over the world) but when it hits home like in this event or in Meron it is that much more difficult and painful.
In bygone eras people were much more insulated from bad news than they are today, at least visually.
I often wonder what the effect on our modern psyches are from the constant secondhand exposure to traumatic events.

grace413

Thu, Jun 24 2021, 11:16 pm

etky wrote:

Liking this was not enough.

I was also thinking of this pasuk since I heard the news.

I am originally from South Florida (not Surfside); any time you have even a tenuous connection to a disaster it makes it more real.

amother

↑ Oxfordblue

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 12:16 am

IsraeliSoul wrote:

Suicides in Beit shemesh?

If you are part of hatzolah you would know. During the height of Corona there were days were there were multiple attempted and successful suicides. Now it's once every week or two.

Most of the times it's successful. People are embarrassed or they just want privacy for their family member so it's not usually announced that there's a death, and when it is they just say the person was sick. (Mental illness is sick too).

LovesHashem ↓

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 12:21 am

amother [ Chicory ] wrote:

Meron unfortunately was not abnormal. Experts had been warning about it for years, if you look up crowd crushes its actually pretty common. According to Wikipedia there was another major Jewish crowd crush in which over a thousand people died in our history as well.

Raisin ↓

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 1:34 am

In a way its more scary than Meron. You can attempt to avoid crowded situations like Meron, and many do. But everyone needs to live somewhere and the thought that your house or apartment can suddenly collapse is terrifying.

Hoping they will find more people alive. I keep checking the news but nothing yet. Sad

. So many people, old, young and in between. And each with relatives and friends who are suffering now.

chanchy123

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 2:10 am

Raisin wrote:

. So many people, old, young and in between. And each with relatives and friends who are suffering now.

Exactly my thoughts as well.

ora_43

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 2:36 am

This is so horrific.

I think Meron struck people more immediately as a Jewish tragedy. All the victims were frum, it happened at a holy site, on a holy day. Plus, the controversy; people accusing police of causing the tragedy (possibly even maliciously), people accusing hareidi leaders of ignoring warnings.

Hence the immediate strong frum reaction.

But this is obviously tragic and awful as well. The more subdued reaction isn't down to people being less horrified.

↑ etky ↓

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 3:09 am

ora_43 wrote:

That was part off the unique insanity of the situation: the juxtaposition between the ecstatic joy that people expect to experience at Kever Rashbi on Lag Ba'Omer and the shockingly horrific situation that developed instead, that caught people off guard. It was a very difficult dissonance to digest.

amother

↑ Nectarine ↓

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 5:12 am

too soon to know the ostensible cause of this
honestly looks like twin towers like a terror bomb went off — in a small town in which about half are Orthodox Jews tons of kosher restaurants shopping etc — very clearly “Jewish area and “Jewish” building
No contest and all connected tragedies R”L
Pro Palestinian thugs “marched” in surfside during shavuous
hashem yerachem
focused on davening people are found alive and able to recover IY"H

amother

Aquamarine

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 5:26 am

Both this and Meron are horrifying and devastating and there are not enough adjectives to describe the awfulness, but I think people were more shaken up then for another reason. When a building falls down, you expect there to be deaths. Obviously you don't expect buildings to collapse, but when it does happen, the results are usually tragic. In Meron, nothing major happened and people died. People fall all the time and they get up and move on--or maybe they're injured and need treatment--but 45 people don't die without any significant underlying reason. And that's exactly what happened in Meron. Absolutely nothing of significance happened, and still many people died, most of them young and in good health. That is quite jolting because it makes you feel like you have no control and just one wrong step can lead to such catastrophic results.