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(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — Nearly two dozen 911 calls released by the Miami-Dade Police Department Wednesday convey the confusion, panic and disbelief among residents and neighbors after the partial collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium in the beachside town of Surfside, Florida, in the early hours of June 24.

“I’m in the Champlain Towers, something is going on here. You gotta get us out of here.”

“It seemed like there was an earthquake.”

“Oh my God, the whole building collapsed.”

Frantic 911 calls came in from residents who were trapped inside after approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed in the collapse at around 1:15 a.m.

“Half the building’s gone!” a panicked woman told the operator from her apartment.

A woman calling from the second floor told the operator that she couldn’t find an exit.

“We didn’t know which stairs we can get out,” she said.

A man on the same call told the operator he heard people yelling from the collapsed portion of the building.

“There’s people yelling, saying that they’re stuck,” he said.

“Is it safe for us to stay here?” he later asked.

The operator stayed with him on the phone as he and his family went down to the basement looking for a way out.

“The entire garage is flooded,” he said, updating the operator that they were going to try to go back to the second floor and that other people had joined his family.

“There are people in the rubble yelling, by the way,” he later said, softly.

One person called 911 from the flooded garage.

“A bunch of us are in the garage but we cannot get out,” the caller said. “We’re going back up the stairwell, the garage is inundated with water. We don’t know where the water is coming from.”

A distressed woman called from outside the parking garage asking to be rescued.

“Can somebody help me get out?” she asked. “I was able to escape but I’m in the parking lot. If the building comes down it will come down on my head.”

Other calls came in from family members of those who lived in the condo begging for help.

“My sister lives there,” one person said. “I don’t know, something happened to it. I don’t know, half of the building isn’t there anymore. She is alive and she is there, she’s in apartment [muted]. If someone can get her out through the balcony.”

Witnesses who heard the collapse and saw the aftermath also called 911.

“What are you seeing sir because we are getting a lot of calls over there?” an overwhelmed operator asked in one call.

“A very large building collapse, like the building next to us is gone,” the caller replied.

Another caller a block and a half away reported hearing an explosion.

Others reported seeing smoke and flames following the collapse.

“A building collapsed a block away from me and there is major smoke everywhere. We don’t know if anybody is hurt,” a caller said. “I heard the explosion all the way and the building is collapsing.”

Several callers described hearing what sounded like an earthquake, as well as an explosion from the garage.

“I woke up because I was hearing some noise,” one caller said. “I looked outside and the patio area started sinking down.”

“The building just went into the sinkhole,” the caller said a few seconds later. “There will be many, many people dead.”

The full toll of the disaster still remains to be seen; after nearly three weeks of search efforts, at least 95 people have been confirmed dead, while 14 people remain unaccounted for, officials said Tuesday. The cause of the partial collapse is under investigation.

Documents released by the city of Surfside show there was structural damage to the concrete slabs on the condo building’s pool deck and failed waterproofing in parts of the tower, and that the pool deck and the ceiling of the underground parking garage beneath it had needed repairs as early as 1996.

ABC News’ Benjamin Stein contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A judge has delayed the sentencing of a man convicted of murdering University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts after defense attorneys filed court documents accusing prosecutors of failing to disclose that police were investigating a sex trafficking “trap house” involving a man linked to a missing 11-year-old boy.

Instead of sentencing Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who was expected to receive life in prison without the possibility of parole, Judge Joel Yates will hold a hearing on Thursday on a defense motion to set aside the verdict and schedule a new trial.

A jury convicted Bahena Rivera, a 27-year-old Mexican national farmworker, in May of first-degree murder in the 2018 abduction and killing of the 20-year-old student.

On Tuesday, Bahena Rivera’s attorneys filed a motion, alleging prosecutors failed to disclose a separate investigation was occurring at the time of Tibbetts’ disappearance involving a man allegedly operating a sex trafficking “trap house” in New Sharon, Iowa, 27 miles from Brooklyn, Iowa, where Tibbetts went missing on July 18, 2018.

The 50-year-old man the defense attorneys identified by name in their motion was once the live-in boyfriend of the mother of 11-year-old Xavior Harrelson, who vanished from a rural Iowa trailer park on May 27, a day before the jury found Bahena Rivera guilty.

The motion also claimed that an investigation by the defense found that, in the past few years, at least 10 children have been reported missing in or near Poweshiek County, Iowa, the same county where Tibbetts was stabbed to death and dumped in a cornfield.

The defense attorneys filed court papers last week asking for a new trial based on information from two witnesses who came forward to law enforcement in May saying they independently spoke to a man who claimed he and a 50-year-old sex trafficker killed Tibbetts and framed Bahena Rivera.

One of the new witnesses purportedly claimed the real killer — who was in jail with the witness at the time — told him that he first saw Tibbetts bound and gagged at a sex trafficking “trap house” owned by his alleged accomplice. The man claimed, according to the defense motion, his alleged accomplice grew worried after federal authorities searching for Tibbetts showed up at a house next door to his.

“That Mexican shouldn’t be in jail for killing Mollie Tibbett, because I raped her and killed her,” the witness claimed the confessed killer told him, according to the earlier defense motion.

In their motion filed Tuesday, defense attorneys attached a police search warrant affidavit for the New Sharon home that they say “corroborates the ‘trap house’ account.”

A second individual contacted the Mahaska County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Office with a similar story involving the same man who reportedly confessed, but deputies said the witness appeared to be under the influence at the time and dismissed the story as not being credible.

Both witnesses contacted investigators within hours of each other on May 26, the same day Bahena Rivera testified at his trial that he was kidnapped by two masked men who forced him to drive them to where Tibbetts was expected to be jogging. He claimed that when they found Tibbetts, one of the men stabbed her to death, put her body in the trunk of Bahena Rivera’s car and made him drive to a cornfield, where the young woman’s badly decomposed remains were discovered a month after she went missing.

Bahena Rivera admitted on the witness stand that he placed Tibbetts’ body in the cornfield but was not involved in her murder. Bahena Rivera claimed during his testimony that he didn’t tell investigators about the masked men because they threatened to harm his former girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, if he did.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Scott Brown called Bahena Rivera’s testimony a “figment of his imagination.” A jury deliberated seven hours over two days before finding Bahena Rivera guilty.

Following the verdict, prosecutors informed the defense attorneys that the two witnesses had come forward.

The defense motion filed Tuesday argued that Bahena Rivera’s “claim based on newly discovered evidence has turned into a due process violation arising from the prosecution’s failure to turn over reports involving trap houses and kidnappings in or near the Poweshiek County area.”

Prosecutors from the Iowa State Attorney General’s Office have yet to comment on the new developments but are expected to file a response to the defense motion for a new trial on Wednesday.

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(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) — An arrest has been made in the slaying of a Houston mom who was shot and killed while in Maryland to drop off her son at the U.S. Naval Academy, authorities announced Wednesday.

Angelo Harrod, 29, allegedly shot Michelle Cummings, 57, while she sat on an Annapolis hotel patio in the early hours of June 29, according to Annapolis police.

Harrod was confined to home detention on May 3 and allegedly cut off his ankle bracelet before the shooting, Annapolis Police Chief Edward Jackson said at a news conference Wednesday.

A warrant had been out for Harrod for absconding home detection and authorities had been looking for him, Jackson said.

Harrod was identified as a suspect in the Cummings case after police reviewed videos and photos from the crime scene, according to the chief.

“The minute we knew he was wanted … we were looking for him and we just happened to find him on June 30,” Jackson said.

Cummings was not the intended target of the shooting, police said. The shots were fired on Pleasant Street and traveled a short distance, hitting Cummings, police said.

Charges filed Wednesday against Harrod include first-degree murder, second-degree murder and attempted murder.

The attempted murder charges are because the suspect allegedly attempted “to murder two other citizens that night on Pleasant Street,” the chief said.

Harrod is being held without bond, Jackson added.

Cummings and her husband were in Annapolis at the time of her slaying to bring their son, Midshipman Candidate Leonard Cummings III, to the U.S. Naval Academy. Their son, who goes by Trey, is an incoming freshman for the Naval Academy Class of 2025, the Academy said.

Jackson said he was desperate to solve this case.

“Some nights I couldn’t sleep. I felt rage,” he said.

Jackson said he called Cummings’ husband Wednesday morning with the news. Jackson said her husband “paused,” and then said, “Thank you, chief.”

Naval Academy Superintendent Sean Buck said at the news conference, “When Trey is ready … we will welcome him back with open arms.”

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(FORT HOOD, Texas) — A woman accused of helping Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen’s suspected killer dismember and dispose of Guillen’s body last year has been indicted by a grand jury.

Cecily Ann Aguilar was indicted Tuesday on 11 federal charges including accessory after the fact, destruction of records in a federal case, conspiracy to tamper with documents, tampering with documents and issuing false statements in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

The charges come one month after a Texas judge denied a motion from Aguilar asking her confession in the crime be thrown out.

Guillen was a Fort Hood Army specialist who disappeared in April 2020. Her remains were found along the Leon River in late June that year.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Texas said Guillen was bludgeoned to death with a hammer by fellow soldier Aaron David Robinson in the arms room of the Killeen, Texas, military base, according to the criminal complaint. He later died by suicide in July when confronted by police after Guillen’s remains were found.

Aguilar was his girlfriend at the time, according to the criminal complaint, and was taken into custody. In July 2020, she was charged with one federal count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

The Tuesday indictment stated Aguilar “did unlawfully and knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with another person to corruptly alter, destroy, mutilate, and conceal any record, document and other object,” such as Guillen’s body, “with the intent to impair its integrity and availability for use in an official proceeding.”

The documents stated she and Robinson dismembered Guillen’s body, destroyed some of it and concealed what was left of her remains. They further said she made false statements “to prevent” Robinson and herself “from being charged with and prosecuted for any crime.”

Lawyers for Aguilar did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Natalie Khawam, the attorney for Guillen’s family, told ABC News they are hoping for a “maximum sentence” for Aguilar.

“My clients, the Guillen family, and I believe that Cecily Aguilar is guilty. When the U.S. Attorney called me yesterday to tell us the news, we felt some relief knowing that justice is underway,” Khawam said. “We pray that this trial does not drag on but rather is put on a speedy trial calendar so that justice is not delayed. Vanessa was brutally murdered, in a way no one should ever be taken from this Earth.”

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(NEW YORK) — The already devastating wildfire conditions in the West are expected to worsen Wednesday as the region sees an increase of gusty, dry winds — which is fuel for fire.

More than 60 wildfires are burning across the West. Red flag warnings and heat advisories have been issued in Northern California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Wildfire season has only just begun, but there are already 14,000 firefighters on the front lines.

In the Pacific Northwest, the Wednesday forecast shows winds gusting up to 35 mph, temperatures soaring near 105 degrees and relative humidity falling to 7%.

The Bootleg Fire in Klamath County, Oregon, is currently the nation’s largest wildfire, clocking in at over 200,000 acres, ABC Portland affiliate KATU reported.

In Nespelem, Washington, all residents were evacuated as a wildfire caused by lightning raced across town, The Spokesman-Review reported.

In Madera County, California, local authorities have declared a state of emergency as the River Fire ravages the area. The blaze has covered 9,500 acres and is 15% contained, according to Cal Fire.

“The extreme heat and winds have proven to be challenging for not only fire personnel, but those working to support those efforts,” Sheriff Tyson Pogue said Tuesday. “This proclamation will provide much needed resources to support our community.”

The massive fires have sent smoke halfway across the country, reaching as far as the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes. Air quality alerts have been issued from Colorado to Minnesota.

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(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — A series of construction permit records, letters and other documents from more than two decades ago show that Champlain Towers South was in need of waterproofing and structural repairs in the parking garage just 15 years after the original construction of the building.

The documents released by the Town of Surfside, Florida, on Tuesday show that the pool deck of the Surfside condo building that collapsed last month and the ceiling of the underground parking garage beneath it had needed repairs as early as 1996.

“The scope of work will be concrete structural repair in the parking garage,” wrote Rob Sommer, sales manager for Western Waterproofing Company of America to the Surfside Building Department in March 1996. “This type of repair entails removing loose concrete overhead, treating steel rebar with rust inhibitive coating and patching back with repair mortar. Also included in the garage will be urethane foam injection in ceiling cracks.”

Tong Le, the project engineer contracted for the repair work, estimated the project to cost roughly $156,600.

Later in November 1997, Le wrote to Surfside’s Building Department that the deck was waterproofed and that approximately 20 square-foot of spalls in the ceiling of the garage had been repaired. Le wrote that the “repair of the spallings has been done in compliance with the approved” regulations.

Le did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

ABC News previously reported that a 2018 Structural Field Survey report released by the city of Surfside found “major structural damage” to concrete structural slabs on the pool deck and failed waterproofing in parts of the tower.

In his report, engineer Frank Morabito said previous repair work in the garage had been “ineffective.”

Allyn Kilsheimer, an engineer hired by the Town of Surfside to investigate the collapse of the building, cautioned against directly linking the repair work from 1996 and the deficiencies cited in Morabito’s report, telling ABC News that it’s not yet known if they were referring to the same specific areas.

Engineering experts offered differing views on how concerning the repair work from 1996 was and how it could have contributed to the building collapse.

“It is not normal,” said Joel Figueroa-Vallines, an Orlando-based forensic structural engineer and president of SEP Engineers, of the documents. “Generally, the life of a structure is much longer than that. Life cycles of concrete structures can be over 50 years, so this is very concerning.”

Figueroa-Vallines told ABC News that cracking can reveal structural issues and added that whenever there is cracking on concrete, “there is stress where it shouldn’t be.”

“..The fact that there were a lot of cracks on a structural slab, that tells me that something was going on in that pool area,” said Figueroa-Vallines. “On top of the fact that the pool area is the highest loaded area of the whole building.”

Meanwhile, Kilsheimer said the damages and repairs described in the 1996 permit documents are “normal” and “expected,” especially in Surfside’s environment, where buildings are prone to heavier corrosion from the adjacent seawater.

Shankar Nair, a Chicago-based engineering expert, told ABC News that the deficiencies and repair work cited in the 1996 permit documents are “not common” but also “not extremely rare.”

“This type of concrete deterioration does not usually lead to sudden catastrophic collapse, but there is a lot about this collapse that is unusual, if not unique.”

Crews are continuing their recovery efforts after the remaining parts of the partially collapsed building were demolished last week.

So far there are at least 95 confirmed deaths from the collapse. As of Tuesday morning, 85 of those 95 victims have been identified. There are still 14 people potentially unaccounted for, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Cava said at a press conference Tuesday.

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(HIGH POINT, N.C.) — A teenage boy was shot and killed in North Carolina on Tuesday after the alleged shooter thought the victim was “tampering” with his car, police said.

The fatal shooting occurred at approximately 2:15 a.m. local time in High Point, about 17 miles southwest of Greensboro. Officers responded to a report of shots being fired in a residential neighborhood and canvassed the area for several minutes before they found a 15-year-old boy lying beside a home who was suffering from two gunshot wounds to the chest and one gunshot wound to the arm, according to a statement from the High Point Police Department.

Officers attempted to perform life-saving measures on the unnamed victim until medics arrived on scene and transported him to a local hospital, where he later died, police said.

Police said that detectives from the Violent Crimes Unit responded to the scene to investigate the homicide and that three other juveniles related to the incident were subsequently transported to the police department for questioning. However, investigators said they received “no cooperation or detailed account of the events that led to the homicide.”

Detectives ultimately identified a person of interest in the shooting and obtained a search warrant for a residence close to the scene of the crime. Several pieces of evidence were then seized from the location and, as a result of the search, 25-year-old Davonte T. Strickland of High Point, North Carolina, was arrested, according to police.

Detectives believe Strickland shot the boy in “reaction to individuals on his property tampering with a vehicle in the driveway,” police said. He faces charges of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to police.

It was unclear if Strickland had obtained legal representation who could speak on his behalf.

The shooting remains under investigation and anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Crime Stoppers of High Point at 336-889-4000.

“High Point Police detectives are still conducting an active investigation into this incident,” the police department said in the statement Tuesday. “During this investigative process, detectives will continue to conduct interviews of potential witnesses and involved parties, conduct searches of any people, vehicles, or places that may contain evidence of the crime, and collect any other relevant materials that may aid in investigation or prosecution.”

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(WASHINGTON) — After being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Washington Monument reopens Wednesday with limited capacity.

“For the most part, it will look like normal operations,” Mike Litterst, the chief of communications for the National Mall and Memorial Parks, told ABC News. “But we are, for the time being, putting some capacity limits in place. And we are requiring masks of anyone age two and over that enters the monument.”

Litterst said the mask requirement would be enforced even if someone is fully vaccinated. While the monument is able to hold a capacity of 1,100 people per day, according to Litterst, the National Park Service is limiting the number by almost half, down to 580 per day to accommodate for social distancing protocols.

But tickets are selling fast. On Tuesday, it sold out in 90 seconds for Wednesday’s reopening.

“We knew it was going to be popular, but I don’t think we were even expecting that kind of popularity,” Litterst told ABC News.

Tickets to the monument need to be reserved in advance, and visitors can book them starting at 10 a.m. the day before they plan to visit.

“So, if you want to visit on Friday, tickets become available at 10 o’clock on Thursday,” he said.

In the last decade, the monument has been closed more than it has been open. After an earthquake in 2011, the monument closed down for nearly three years due to repairs. Then, it reopened for a year and a half before it was closed again so the NPS could modernize its elevator. After the $10 million+ restoration of the site was completed, it reopened in September 2019. It was only open for about six months before COVID swept across the country in March 2020, shutting down businesses and public spaces like the monument. It then reopened on Oct. 1, 2020 and closed down again on Jan. 11, 2021.

But Litterst is confident the monument will remain open for the foreseeable future, especially because he said no mechanical repairs need to be made soon.

“We are confident and optimistic and hopeful that we’re going to be open starting [today], and we’re going to be open for a good long run in the foreseeable future,” he told ABC News.

He expects the modernized elevator system to run for another 15-20 years before repairs need to be made again.

While his team is excited that the monument is open and accessible once more to the public, Litterst stressed that the top priority for the NPS has, and always will be, the public’s safety.

“Regardless of pandemic or no pandemic, safety has always been top priority for any of our sites,” Litterst said. “That’s why we waited to this point to open, to make sure that we were in a position where people could be kept safe. And that’s the reason that – at least initially – when we open, we’re limiting the capacity and we’re requiring the masks.”

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(SPRINGFIELD, Mo.) — The city of Springfield, Missouri, announced Monday that it was canceling a major summer festival as COVID-19 surges in the region.

The Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, which was scheduled for Aug. 13-14 and typically includes live music and a classic car parade, has been called off for the second year in a row due to COVID-19. In 2019, the last year the festival was held, it drew 65,000 attendees over two days, and it was expected to host 75,000 this year, according to the city.

“With our region’s low vaccination rate against COVID-19, the resulting surge of infections are overwhelming our hospitals and making our community sick,” Cora Scott, director of public information and civic engagement for the city, said in a statement. “We feel it is just not safe to bring tens of thousands of people from all over the world to this community for any reason.”

Missouri’s vaccination rate trails the national average. As of Monday, 46% of residents had received at least one dose, and 40% were fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 56% of all Americans who’ve gotten at least one shot and 48% who are fully vaccinated.

In Greene County, where Springfield is located, vaccination rates are even lower than the statewide average. Just 39% of Greene County residents have received one dose of the vaccine, and 34% are fully vaccinated, according to state health department data.

Missouri is among a growing list of states that have seen rising infections, with new cases increasing 64% over the last two weeks, from 796 to 1,304, with a total of 9,100 cases per week, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and Nevada lead the nation with the highest weekly case rates per capita, which translates into more than 100 infections per 100,000 residents. New COVID-19 hospital admissions also rose 40% over the same two-week span.

In Springfield, which is in the southwest part of the state, the surge is straining hospitals and front-line workers say patients are becoming sicker more quickly.

Erin Baker, a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, told ABC News that the hospital has had seen an uptick in patients who needed to be intubated.

“A lot of healthier people, younger people in their 20s, 30s, 40s are getting this delta variant or COVID a lot quicker,” Baker said. “Their health deteriorates very quickly.”

Last month, the state health department warned that the delta variant, which is more transmissible than the original form of the virus and is especially dangerous to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people, had “become prevalent in communities throughout Missouri.”

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(WASHINGTON) — As more people return to the skies, the number of unruly passenger incidents onboard planes continues to skyrocket.

Last week alone, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported an increase of 150 unruly passenger cases, making it the worst weekly report of the summer.

The FAA said on Tuesday that it has received over 3,400 reports of unruly behavior from passengers since the beginning of the year. Of those incidents, 75% involved passengers who refused to wear face coverings.

In one of the most recent cases, a woman from Florida was arrested after allegedly refusing to wear a mask on a Delta Air Lines flight.

Video of the incident appears to show the woman argue with police officers on board the aircraft as they ask her to deplane. She was then restrained and escorted off.

Adelaide Schrowang is facing several charges and remains in police custody on a $56,000 bond.

The FAA is still enforcing its zero-tolerance policy for in-flight disruptions which could lead to fines as high as $52,500 and up to 20 years in prison. The agency has looked into more than 550 potential violations of federal law this year — the highest number since 1995.

Last month, a coalition of airline lobbying groups and unions called on the Justice Department to go a step further and prosecute unruly passengers “to the fullest extent of the law.”

“The federal government should send a strong and consistent message through criminal enforcement that compliance with federal law and upholding aviation safety are of paramount importance,” the letter said.

Flight attendants are often the first responders during these in-flight confrontations, and they have seen them become more volatile.

An unruly passenger allegedly punched a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in the face last month, knocking her two front teeth out.

“It tops the chart of the most egregious things I’ve ever heard of,” Lyn Montgomery, a spokesperson for the union that represents Southwest flight attendants, told ABC News. “It’s unbelievable and really hard to understand the level of aggression that has been exhibited towards our flight crews. It just seems that when people get on board an aircraft they’re feeling more angry than they used to feel.”

The spike in unruly passenger reports prompted the TSA to resume crew member self-defense training this month.

The voluntary training program, which was put on hold due to the pandemic, provides flight crew members with techniques “for responding against an attacker in a commercial passenger or cargo aircraft,” including self-defense measures and ways to identify and deter potential threats.

“It should be a recurring training so that we can create that muscle memory that you need to be able to respond at a moment’s notice,” Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told ABC News. “But even taking the course one time changed my attitude, gave me a better understanding about how to stand, how to hold myself, how to protect myself if someone is coming at me.”

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