A Miami-Dade County employee deleted critical audio files chronicling the search-and-rescue effort of the first frantic hours of the Surfside condo collapse, one of the deadliest building disasters in U.S. history, a USA TODAY investigation found. The audio included communications that Miami-Dade Fire Rescue tactical teams had with central dispatchers as they searched for survivors in the immediate aftermath of the June 24 disaster that struck the Champlain Towers South condominium at 1:23 a.m. In all, hundreds of hours of communications from two different radio channels – some of which described in heart-wrenching detail how first responders tried to locate and save victims – were supposed to be recorded and preserved for the public record. But nearly two months later, more than 23 hours of those recordings were erased. Click the link in our bio for the full story.