MIAMI (AP) — When an old high school friend lost a long battle with COVID-19, Jay Kleiman went back for the funeral from Puerto Rico to the condominium where he…
MIAMI (AP) — When an old high school friend lost a long battle with COVID-19, Jay Kleiman went back for the funeral from Puerto Rico to the condominium where he grew up north of Miami Beach. But hours before the ceremony, the high-rise building in the affluent neighborhood of Surfside collapsed, leaving more than 100 people missing overnight. Now Kleiman may himself be dead, along with his mother and brother staying at the apartment. “It is so tragic that he flew for a friend who died from COVID complications, and ended up there,” said Mark Baranek, who coached both Kleiman and his friend George Matz for a flag football team from their synagogue. Kleiman,52, is part of a growing list of missing people along with his brother Frankie Kleiman, and his mother Nancy Kress Levin. For the family and their friends, the tragedy of the building collapse comes on top of the devastation that the COVID pandemic has already brought. The family’s roots in the Miami area go back decades.
