State Emergency Managers Coming Up With Contingency Plans In Case Storm Threatens

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - While search crews tirelessly sift through the rubble of the Surfside building collapse, local and state leaders are making plans in case a tropical system sweeps through Florida.

Regardless of what's happening in the tropics, the weather has already been a problem.

"The weather has continued, unfortunately, inclement causing definitely some challenges, but they have continued, they have persisted," says Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management is working with Miami-Dade's Office of Emergency Management to develop contingency plans for weather.

Those plans include relocating facilities and communications and also creating backup plans of how to continue responding to the collapse while also responding to a storm.

The state is acting fast - a federal urban search and rescue team was requested on Wednesday.

"We will need that team to augment the efforts here so we can free up some of our state assets to be able to respond to a tropical cyclone," says Kevin Guthrie, director of the state's Division of Emergency Management.

The Florida Department of Transportation has also brought in additional help for around-the-clock debris removal.

"FDOT is also deploying additional heavy equipment from other areas in the state to assist in this effort," said Guthrie.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said the search is going to continue until they pull everyone out.

"This is our number one effort, and I very much appreciate that and I know the families appreciate that and we will be keeping working to make that happen," said Burkett.