One of the victims of the Champlain Towers South condominium building collapse in Surfside grew up in the Jacksonville Beach area.
Elaine Sabino, 71, was in the complex when it collapsed June 24.
Sabino’s daughter, Stephanie McManus, spoke with News4Jax by phone. She said her mother lived on the top floor.
“It has been the happiest times for my mom in the last few years flying for JetBlue as a flight attendant and getting to see the world. And, I know most recently she’d been reconnecting with old friends who will be crushed to hear this news,” McManus said in a Facebook post.
When Sabino was growing up in the Jacksonville Beach area, she was then Elaine Howard. She graduated from Fletcher High School in 1968. Then her family moved to Daytona. She went to the University of Florida and became a Gatorette, a talented baton twirler. She taught it for many years after that.
Sabino is among the growing number of deaths confirmed in the collapse. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Monday that of the 94 deaths confirmed in the collapse, 83 of those victims have been identified, but “the process of making identifications has been made more difficult as time goes on.”
“Please join me in continuing to pray for those we have lost, the families who are grieving and those who are still waiting,” Levine Cava said.
Authorities have been reaching out to families with every positive identification, and that was the case when Sabino was identified.
“This morning, Miami Dade Police came to me and told me mom has been found, and she has passed away. I am so grateful, on one hand, to know she is no longer lost or trapped. My nightmare these days has been that possibility. And, I am heartbroken, to know my beautiful mom is gone from this world,” McManus wrote in the post.
Levine Cava said 22 people remain unaccounted for in the collapse.