The mood in the Florida town where a building partially collapsed is anger, according to John Neilan, a former Howland resident living in Aventura, Fla., just minutes away from the site of the Champlain Towers South condominium.

“There’s a lot of anger down here. It’s going to be like that for a while,” said Neilan, a 2007 Youngstown State University graduate.

At least 12 are dead and 149 people remained missing Tuesday after the Thursday collapse in the middle of the night.

Neilan, who lived in Surfside with his brother after they moved from Ohio, characterized the Surfside area as “very wealthy.”

“It’s a good community,” Neilan said. “Very low crime.”

Neilan said the anger in the community stems from reports coming to light that the building had structural problems that were not addressed.

While it was initially unclear why part of the 12-story building collapsed early Thursday, records have since emerged indicating that an engineering firm, Morabito Consultants, issued a report describing key flaws in the structure in 2018. Shortly after, a then-Surfside official, Rosendo “Ross” Prieto remarked at a Champlain Towers South board meeting that the condominium was in “very good shape,” according to the Associated Press.

“The residents of that building were told something that was not true. They were told that building was in good condition. It wasn’t,” Neilan said.

He said that many people from the Mahoning Valley retire to the area, and that they should “think twice” about where they live when they get down there.

Several lawsuits have already been filed in regard to the collapse, according to the Associated Press.

“The only thing that is going to give these people closure — there could be criminal charges. There should be,” Neilan said.

Adding to the “eerie” atmosphere in Surfside are detectives from Miami-Dade homicide, who have been at the scene of the collapse collecting DNA from family members of the roughly 150 people still missing in the rubble, Neilan said. The DNA will be used to identify remains, according to reports.

While there are still undertones of hope in the area, Neilan believes it is unlikely more survivors will be found, especially because of fires that have erupted under the wreckage.

Neilan, who often drives past the Champlain Towers, was shocked by the collapse.

“I’ve passed that place so many times, and you would never think that would ever happen,” Neilan said.

avugrincic@tribtoday.com