‘Never give up hope’: Joe Biden consoles families of Surfside victims in Miami as search for survivors is paused
- Biden and his wife Jill spent hours talking to the families, with Biden telling them ‘I just wish there was something I could do to ease the pain’
- The collapse of the 12-storey Champlain Towers South beachfront condominium on June 24 killed at least 18 people and left 145 missing
Addressing some of the families touched by the tragedy, Biden spoke in deeply personal terms as he offered his prayers and support in the private meeting.
“I just wish there was something I could do to ease the pain,” he said in a video posted on Instagram by Jacqueline Patoka, a woman who was close to a couple and their daughter who are still missing. .
Few public figures connect as powerfully on grief as Biden, who lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car collision and later an adult son to brain cancer. In the first months of his term, he has drawn on that empathy to console those who have lost loved ones, including the more than 600,000 who have died in the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a quiet voice heightened with emotion, Biden on Thursday described his own despair at having to wait to find out about how his family fared after a crisis similar to the one experienced in Surfside. He spent more than three hours privately speaking with those grieving, addressing the group first and then moving from family to family to listen to their stories. Biden spoke of wanting to switch places with a lost or missing loved one and lamented that “the waiting, the waiting, is unbearable.”