‘Something Has Happened In Surfside’: Honors College Director Was Not Home When Her Condo Building Collapsed

Magda Castineyra was awakened by a phone call at 5:30 a.m. last Thursday.

 “Where are you? Do you need me?” said her cousin on the other end. “Tell me where you are. I’m going to come and get you.”

Castineyra was perplexed. She feared something had happened to her cousin or his kids.

“I need you to go to a TV and turn on the news,” Castineyra’s cousin said. “Something has happened in Surfside and you need to see it.”

When she turned on the TV, she saw that Champlain Towers South in Surfside had collapsed. 

Her second-floor apartment, the one she had lived in for the past 18 years, was one of 55 units destroyed in the catastrophe. At least 18 people have been confirmed dead and 145 others remain unaccounted for, according to the Miami Herald. 

Castineyra, 58, survived the horrific incident because she wasn’t home when the building crumbled. After a late dinner with her mom Wednesday night, she slept at her apartment.

“I make plans like that and change them all the time,” Castineyra said. “Sometimes I call and at the last minute I say: ‘You know, mom, I’m really sorry. There’s too much traffic, I’m just too tired, or I’m going to work late and then go home. But I was led to my mom’s on Wednesday.”

When Castineyra’s students from the Honors College at the Eduardo J. Padrón Campus, where she serves as director, heard what happened—they organized a Go Fund Me page that has collected more than $22,635 in five days. 

Reynier Montalvan, who graduated from the Honors College in 2017, said it was a no-brainer to help the woman who has helped so many others during her 15 years at MDC.

“Magda took me in. [Everything] that I have right now and where I am today, I owe it to her,” said Montalvan, who will start a full-time position as a tax associate at the consulting firm RSM US this fall. “I owe her all those things, and so do multiple of my friends, and for that I’m forever grateful.”

Castineyra said she is grappling with not knowing what happened to many of her neighbors—many of whom she’s known for years—and the fact that she survived.

“I have this strange feeling of why me and not them, almost like a strange guilt,” Castineyra said. “But I am overall feeling very blessed.”

Her days are packed with grief counseling sessions, meditation and prayer, and filling out paperwork to retrieve government documents like her passport and social security card. 

“I’m very glad [for] all of the support and the love that I’m receiving, and [for everything] the incredible place that I work at has given me,” she said. “The only thing Miami Dade College has asked me is: ‘What do you need?’ So, I have the time to be able to do all of this without [worrying].” 

Castineyra has also thought about her aquatic turtle, Tony, a staple in her Surfside condo who was in the building at the time of the collapse. 

“My nieces and nephews had grown up with [Tony],” Castineyra said. “She’s older than most of [them].”

Once people knew that Castineyra was okay, they kept asking about Tony the Turtle.

“We’re hoping she’s swimming free,” Castineyra said.

Despite the tragedy, Castineyra is grateful for a second chance.

“I have two birthdays now [for having survived the building collapse],” Castineyra said. “This is a celebration of what’s happened. I don’t want it to be anything more than that. No victim mentality here. There’s a level of suffering that is not compared at all to what’s happening in the bigger picture of this.”

To donate to the Go Fund Me page in Castineyra’s support, visit this link: https://bit.ly/3xb4Oaf