- This year was a horror movie.
It's a nightmare, still a nightmare.
- There is not a single day that goes by that
Surfside is not in my heart.
- I attribute it all to my guardian angels,
my parents in heaven,
because I just don't know how it just stopped there.
- It's been a year since a portion
of the Champlain Towers South,
a condominium in Surfside, Florida, collapsed,
a year in which survivors and authorities
are still looking for answers on how it happened.
And now there's also nearly a $1 billion settlement in play.
- It's not breaking news anymore after one month.
People seem to forget.
Do you know what it is for 14 days waking up
and asking yourself,
"Is my family dead, or is my family alive?"
Waiting for percentages of bodies day and night.
The fire rescue stopping because there's rain,
when there's people trapped.
So many things were done wrong. - For months, Pablo
and his son Martin have gone to court hearings,
talked to dozens of reporters,
and pressed authorities to answer why this building,
which was due for its first 40-year inspection, collapsed.
- It's been a year.
And the only thing I hear, it's under investigation.
There was another collapse in Iran,
and two days later, 10 people were arrested.
There was another collapse in China,
and I believe nine people were arrested.
Here, it's still under investigation.
- Well, I'm praying for their safety.
- Local authorities say they have shared
every piece of news they have gathered since the collapse.
But for families like the Langesfelds,
that has not been enough.
They want someone held accountable.
- We have calls every other week to give updates on the process.
So everything that is happening has been disclosed,
is totally transparent,
to do everything that we can to show that we are with them,
that we are working with them to come to answers.
- I want to see who's liable.
I want to hear who's liable, and I want to see their faces.
'Cause it shouldn't be happening.
I shouldn't be sitting here looking at the camera
and asking for justice.
This is not my job.
- Federal investigators from the National Institute
of Standards and Technology,
which looks into major building collapses across the country,
said many factors had contributed to the collapse
of the Champlain Towers South building.
- I've been investigating and studying structural failures
for over 40 years,
and I can say that this investigation
is one of the most difficult
and complex of its type ever undertaken.
In the loading and/or the strength of the structure,
there are no clear answers to these questions, either.
- While authorities look for answers,
a class-action lawsuit was settled in early May.
The defendants, including insurance companies
and developers, agreed to pay $997 million
to the relatives of the victims
and survivors to avoid a jury trial.
On May 24 in a Miami courtroom,
another settlement for $96 million
was agreed to for property owners.
- That the property owners in this building
at least contributed to this tragedy
and were at least in part responsible
for the loss of their loved ones.
- But as the legal wrangling continues,
a court will soon put value to each life that was lost
and decide how much money their families will get,
a process that could divide survivors
and the families of the victims even more.
- But I am never changing my mind.
- I'm a unit owner.
I'm not an heir to anything, so I'm not gonna get any money
out of that billion-dollar settlement.
I'm only gonna get out of that $96 million.
- Rosenthal said that at the beginning,
he felt guilty for having survived.
- Why me?
Who am I to survive this?
Lot of people, not that people were upset,
but, you know, why did you survive,
yet my child didn't survive?
Or you're 72 years old, at that time I was 72,
but my 21-year-old daughter didn't make it.
Kind of like that.
And it was hard.
- For some, the settlement is a chance to move on.
For others, it doesn't feel like closure,
not at least until the investigation is complete.
- I would give everything I own to have my sister back.
Everything.
And go in debt for the rest of my life.
- Pablo and Martin lost Nicole Langesfeld
and her husband, Luis Sadovnic.
The newly married couple had moved
into an eighth-floor apartment.
While investigators say it may take years to know
what exactly happened in Surfside,
in late May, Florida state lawmakers
approved a condo safety bill in response
to the Surfside building collapse.
The bill calls for stricter inspections
and puts more responsibility on condo owners.
- As you know, many of us worked very hard,
none more so than Representative Perez
during the regular session,
to bring that Surfside bill into a landing.
- We continue to search through the rubble.
I'm very hopeful that this settlement,
which has come in record time,
will help people to move on with their lives.
For many, it's not enough to compensate.
Nothing could be enough.
But it does perhaps allow people to start to rebuild their lives.