Florida condo collapse

I was laughing because your link was a chick punching some dude.

Yeah man, with all the standards we have I can’t believe something like this happened. Well unless it was sabotage or something.

unbelievable when i saw it…

again, maybe all of this continuous calamity is just a series of coincidences.

This was the article I was talking about.

Just wild speculation by someone who is nowhere near qualified.

I was watching an interview last night with the son of a woman who is missing. She had talked to him the day of the collapse and said overnight she was woken up by creaking sounds coming from the building. One of those things you dismiss at the time but in hindsight it’s an interesting revelation.

Also crazy that the building has been slowly sinking haha.

Personally I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if a sinkhole had something to do with this. Florida is notorious for them.

Also guessing a little too much cocaine was being used while constructing this building. :wink:

Im putting my $1 on this was caused by the construction of the new building next door. They likely pound/vibrate metal pilings into the ground to serve as the foundation which destabilized the ground around it and/or the structure of the 40yr old building that was already sinking…

Dan

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You should call up Fox because that explanation was better than anything their “expert” came up with.

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haha. I only know this because a friend of my FIL owns a construction company that does this work. They were putting up a new building in Ithaca a few years ago and the neighboring building was complaining about either the shaking or some small damage that was occurring (i forget exactly). They had to stop and have the state come out and verify they were within specification limits for the piling work. They were so it was “too bad” for the other buildings.

I also dont think its so crazy that a building near salt water if not maintained correctly could be exposed to additional corrosion of the inner steel structure. If coolant cant make it to the tail light through the wiring harness in an MK4 VW, salt water can prob seep into some of a buildings inner structure. lol

Dan

This news combined with the lady who was in the building freaking out while talking to her husband about how “the pool had disappeared” right before the building started shaking and the line went dead makes it look like they’re zeroing in on the cause.

This is the most reasonable theory I’ve read.

Six engineering experts interviewed by the Miami Herald on Saturday said that based on the publicly available evidence — including building plans, recent inspection reports, photos of debris, an eyewitness, and a surveillance video of the collapse — a structural column or concrete slab beneath the pool deck likely gave way first, causing the deck to collapse into the garage below, forming a crater beneath the bulky midsection of the tower, which then caved in on itself. …

Greg Batista, a professional engineer who specializes in concrete repair and worked on the Surfside condo’s pool deck in 2017, said that the way the building fell points to an initial collapse of the pool deck area into the parking garage, which then dragged down the other parts of the condo tower in a “domino effect.” Structural engineer and retired building inspector Gene Santiago agreed that was a probable trigger[.]

image

You can definitely see the pool deck is all collapsed in that picture. A picture doesn’t tell you if it went first though, but the witness on the phone seems to confirm it did since she was talking about it before the building fell on her.

So here’s the engineers report - pretty damning. As a design professional I can say that this should have set off flashing red lights. I have no clue what, if any, measures were taken to mitigate the issues raised here.

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As I was reading through it at first I didn’t think it seemed bad because it was all about minor electrical stuff and some structural issues with the balconies (which would be bad if this was a case of someone’s balcony falling off, but not the whole building falling down). Then I got to this part…

However, the waterproofing below the Pool Deck & Entrance Drive as well as all of the planter waterproofing is beyond it useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replaced. The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially. MC approach to the repair of this structure is different from what is specified in contract documents in numerous aspects, which are briefly described below.
a. The main issue with this building structure is that the entrance drive/pool deck / planter
waterproofing is laid on a flat structure. Since the reinforced concrete slab is not sloped to drain, the water sits on the waterproofing until it evaporates. This is a major error in the development of the original contract documents prepared by William M. Friedman & Associates Architects, Inc. and Breiterman Jurado & Associates, Consulting Engineers.
b. It is also important to note that the replacement of the existing deck waterproofing will be extremely expensive as removal of the concrete topping slab to gain access to the
waterproofing membrane will take time, be disruptive and create a major disturbance to the occupants of this condominium building. Please note that the installation of deck waterproofing on a flat structure is a systemic issue for this building structure.

It goes on from there to detail even more issues with the garage and pool deck. That pool deck (which was above the garage) is exactly where it’s looking like the collapse started.

Going back to what juicedz4 posted about the construction next door… I did see that people in this condo had complained about the construction and the “shaking” it was causing. Probably going to turn out to be a perfect storm of neglect plus that additional shaking. I wonder if without the construction if the repairs that were part of the 40 year inspection might have saved it from collapse.

Without getting into detail, I’m bringing a large project to construction with a very similar structural system so I’m pretty familiar with what they’re talking about. That level structural slab is a big issue…

I will say, this is absolutely horrifying. Again, speaking as a design professional, I lose sleep thinking that something I designed is going to tip over from some crazy issue my team overlooked. I am very interested to see what is determined to have caused this.

Edit: the project I mentioned I am doing is immediately adjacent to a historic masonry building. The new building will require driven piles for shoring. We are loading that masonry building the fuck up with vibration sensors, and will shut the job down if we exceed a specified threshold. Wonder if that happened here… my gut says no

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Wonder if they will hold the owners personally responsible for the deaths of the tenants being how they knew the building was needing repairs for years.

It would be the condo association - and a suit has already been filed. I have no clue if criminal charges could apply in a situation like this.

It takes a lot to be criminally liable in a situation like this. Not saying it couldn’t get there, but that investigation can’t really even start until you know the cause.

I can’t see criminal charges for the building owners because the building was deemed to be safe after inspection. The owners aren’t the inspectors, so how could you hold that against them?

Nothing we know yet makes them criminally liable. It’s very early on in the investigation though and we don’t even know the cause at this point. Like I said, it takes a lot to be criminally liable. Hypothetical… lets say they find some proof the owners knew there were critical problems with those support beams but hid that information while delaying the repairs because it was going to cost a ton to fix. That would likely result in criminal charges. You have an overt act (hiding the proof) who’s likely outcome resulted in injury or death (the collapse). All you have right now is a report from 2018 saying basically, “Hey, these are some issues that need to be fixed or they’re going to get worse”. Some of those repairs were in progress (the roof was being worked on at the time of the collapse).

You also have the pool guy taking pictures of rusty exposed rebar sticking out of cracked and spalling concrete support beams in the garage area 36 hours before the collapse and saying, “this looks really bad”. Again though, he’s a pool guy, not a structural engineer. Even if those pics/emails he sent made their way to the owners the only reasonable thing to do at that point would be to make some calls to get someone more qualified to look and not getting that done within 36 hours based on the concerns of the pool guy definitely doesn’t make them criminally liable.

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Additionally, there’s a relatively recent memo from the condo board to the residents clearly outlining the issues and a plan to mitigate them, so it’s pretty clear they were transparent with the information

So this is just going to turn into a giant civil court nightmare where every shady lawyer tries to find someone with deep pockets to blame.

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