Dwyane Wadeis paying his respects to those who lost their lives in the Surfside condo collapse.
“#SurfSideStrong💪🏾 Today was about Uplifting, Praising and Showing up!” hecaptioned the post.“Our first responders are the real MVPs🙏🏾🤝#wadecounty.”
In the images, the Miami Heat alum quietly took in the tribute, covered in notes, photos, flowers, personal items, and more that hundreds have left as condolences. Though he and his familyrelocated to Los Angelesfollowing his retirement from professional basketball in 2019, Wade spent the majority of his 16-year NBA career playing for the Heat.
During the visit, he also crouched down to write a message on a memorial sign forStacie Fang,the first identified victim of the tragedy. Her teen son,Jonah Handler,was rescued from the rubble just hours after the collapse.
Dwayne Wade/Instagram
Wade also spent time with some of the first responders on site, addressing members of the Miami-Dade Police Department, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, South Florida Urban Search and Rescue team, and more.
Miami Heat’s Udonis Haslem also visited Surfside days after the collapse to offer support to rescuers and families waiting for news.
“I feel all the pain. I feel everything that goes through this community,” Haslemtold CNN, encouraging others to donate. “This city means way more to me than a game of basketball, and it always will be. This will always be my home and I’m never leaving. And I wish it was under different circumstances that I’m speaking right now, but all we can do is come together.”
Members of the Heat and the city’s other major professional sports teams paid visits to the site of the condo collapse, donating supplies and offering moral support to first responders there.
The NFL’s Miami Dolphins showed up with their food relief program to give out meals to families and first responders in Surfside.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families as they deal with this sudden and tragic loss,” the team said in a statement on social media. “We also appreciate our first responders and volunteers that have worked tirelessly today to lead rescue and relief efforts.”
Meanwhile, the MLB’s Miami Marlins sentvans of meals and waterto rescue workers in support of the community.
As of Friday morning, the death toll for the devastating collapse is 64,CNN reported, with 76 people “potentially unaccounted for.”
Despite hope that search and rescue teams would be able to pull additional survivors from the rubble, local officials announced Wednesday that theSurfside scenehas turned from a search and rescue mission into a recovery effort.
source: people.com
