Entire Families Were Lost in the Surfside Collapse. Here Is One of Their Stories.

Because the disaster happened in the middle of the night, many parents, children, grandparents and siblings were killed together.

MIAMI — Just after dawn on that morning that now feels like forever ago, Annette Guara Hurst hurried to her computer. A high-rise condo building had collapsed in a Surfside, Fla., neighborhood familiar to her, and she needed to see the file where she keeps her family’s addresses. She scanned the list, looking for her youngest brother, praying that her gut was wrong. But there it was: 8777 Collins Avenue, the same location of the oceanfront building that had buckled and fallen in the middle of night. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” were the only words Ms. Hurst could muster.