'10,000 Surfsides': GEM Founder, Back From Venezuela, Describes the Devastation

Back from 18 days on the ground after two earthquakes killed nearly 5,000 people, Michael Capponi described the disaster zone in La Guaira as '10,000 Surfsides' and committed GEM to Venezuela's recovery long-term, announcing a new Latin American headquarters and an expanded relief operation running out of six warehouses.

“This looks exactly like if you drove from First Street Miami Beach to like North Hollywood, and every other building or so looked like Surfside,” Capponi said of La Guaira, the hardest hit state on Venezuela's Caribbean coast.