"It's difficult to come back," Urban Search & Rescue leader returns to Surfside

SURFSIDE - A prominent urban search and rescue team leader who spent 29 days at the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South Condominium complex returned to the site on Thursday to remember the victims and look ahead to Friday's memorial service.

CBS4's Peter D'Oench caught up with Scott Dean at the site. 

The 45-year-old Dean is an Assistant Miami Fire Rescue Chief of the special operations division and is the Urban Search and Rescue team Task Force 2 leader.

Dean, who has been with Miami Fire Rescue for 23 years, said "It is obviously difficult to come back to the site. I personally have not been back here since I left. It's obviously more difficult for families dealing with the loss of loved ones."

He said they worked long days.

"Our shift was 12 noon to 12 a.m., but usually the days started at 9 am where we would get prepared with different operational briefings," he said. 

"This is our back yard and while it is Miami-Dade County's jurisdiction with their Task Force 1, they needed our help and we were going to help them and we are the locals. We had firefighters' members in the building and they had firefighter family members in the building so we all had a connection to it."

Dean plans to be at Friday's remembrance event that starts at 1000 am and is open to the public. First Lady Jill Biden is expected to attend.

Dean said, "I want to pay my respects and remember everyone in this difficult situation. Hopefully, something positive will come out of this and hopefully prevent another building from falling and hopefully identify what this one to fall and maybe prevent others from falling. Looking ahead, we should keep moving forward and go wherever there is a call to help and just keep hoping the families are ok and moving forward and let's never forget what occurred and continue living out life. We only have one."

Dean has been deployed on many missions including one to the World Trade Center on 9-11.

At the site just south of 88th Street on Collins Ave., there is a windscreen memorial listing the names of those who lost their lives.

Many people who have visited that site say they are haunted by what happened and had to return.

Randy Buchberg of El Paso, Texas said he and his parents were in South Florida a year ago when the building collapsed and had returned here for another vacation and felt compelled to visit the site.

Buchberg said, "We just had to see how it looks now compared with a year ago. We wanted to see all the names here on what is a memorial to them. It is unimaginable that something like this could happen. We never want to see this happening."

D'Oench also caught up with Rabbi Yossi Harlig of the Chabad Center of Kendall and Pinecrest and who spent 30 days at the site after the collapse with first responders and family members since he is also a chaplain with the Miami-Dade Police Department.

He said, "It is important that the family members feel that they are not alone. I hope there will be love and care for each other and we must always remain with the families and give them some type of strength so that they can move on and start rebuilding their lives and also a year later it is important to reflect and realize that while the building came down and it crumbled that hope is alive and love and care for everything they stood for."

He had a final message.

"Never take life for granted and number one, make every day meaningful," he said.