Collapse : Disaster in Surfside

Treefort's team of producers, writers, audio engineers, and host worked hand-in- glove with the reporters and editors at the Miami Herald to transform and expand what was primarily a print story into a 12-episode series of original, immersive, and impactful audio narrative journalism.


We spoke with survivors, witnesses, experts, first responders, and journalists, to get the whole story of Surfside. This story was an extremely difficult but important one to share. It was a crucial mission for the team to honor the lives affected and lost due to this tragedy. We, at Treefort Media, tell impactful stories in innovative ways and will continue to do so.

One of the things this project was able to do was take full advantage of materials and media that otherwise may not have found a home or been used to their full potential. We've heard from many listeners that while the podcast dealt with difficult material and was occasionally hard to distressing to hear, they remained drawn in and came away with a sense of understanding they hadn't experienced before. We believe that the project used the audio format to deliver something unique: an episodic narrative that was able to zoom in on the most minute detail or personal experience, and then pull back to capture the big picture and broader context of an unprecedented disaster, sometimes within a single episode.