Surfside condo collapse: Family getting calls from missing grandparents’ landline

SURFSIDE, Fla. — As hopes dwindle for finding survivors from the rubble of a South Florida condominium that partially collapsed Thursday morning, families continue to wait for news about their loved ones.

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One family said it has been receiving calls from the landline telephone of their missing grandparents, who are among the 156 people still missing from the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, the Sun-Sentinel reported. However, there have been no human voices on the other end, only static.

And that is gut-wrenching for Jake Samuelson and his family.

Samuelson said the telephone number of his grandparents, Arnie Notkin and Myriam Caspi Notkin, has popped up on the caller ID of his mother’s phone 16 times since Thursday, according to WPLG. The first call came at 9:50 p.m. EDT on Thursday, nearly 20 hours after the building crashed to the ground, the television station reported.

“We were all sitting there in the living room, my whole family, Diane, my mother,” Samuelson told WPLG. “We were just shocked and we kind of thought nothing of it because we answered, and it was static,” Samuelson said.

Arnie Notkin, 87, is a legendary physical education teacher, coach at Miami Beach schools and a peewee football coach for several decades. His wife, who is 81, is a banker and real estate agent.

>> Surfside condo collapse: Families desperately searching for loved ones

The Notkins lived in Apartment 302 of Champlain Towers South, the Sun-Sentinel reported. The landline was located in the bedroom of the apartment, the newspaper reported.

When Samuelson and his relatives returned from the family reunification center on Friday morning, there were 15 more calls from the Notkins’ number on the caller ID, WPLG reported.

Every call has been stressful, Samuelson said.

“We are trying to rationalize what is happening here, we are trying to get answers,” Samuelson told WPLG.

There were no calls after Friday night, the television station reported.

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