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Condo in Florida Collapses

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C-mac

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A condo building in Florida collapsed this morning. Very tragic.

I know some you guys in this on this forum are in the industry, so I was wondering how this is even possible?
 
www.cnn.com

Search continues with almost 100 people unaccounted for in deadly Florida building collapse

An intense search and rescue effort will continue through the night after part of a 12-story residential building collapsed early Thursday in the South Florida town of Surfside, killing at least one and leaving almost 100 people unaccounted for.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

From the link above:

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*****

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****

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From: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/florida-building-collapse-surfside/
 
The failure analysis will probably end up in a textbook.

Towered said:
It's especially rare and unexpected in a first world country where there are professional building inspections at regular intervals...
Click to expand...

The US has some really shocking structural failures in the last decade - and not all of it is due to aging/deterioration - here is another example in the same town due to undetected design flaws:

STRUCTURE magazine | Deadly Miami Pedestrian Bridge Collapse

www.structuremag.org www.structuremag.org

And then you also have systematic issues with inspections:

www.nola.com

Hard Rock Hotel collapse: Inspectors scolded over lapses weeks before fatal collapse

The same questions now dogging the New Orleans building inspectors who were assigned to the doomed Hard Rock Hotel project — namely their whereabouts and qualifications during those inspections —
www.nola.com www.nola.com

Makes you wonder how good ours are.

AoD
 
Last edited:
Northern Light said:
Eyebrow tilts up......

www.usatoday.com

Collapsed Miami condo had been sinking into Earth as early as the 1990s, researchers say

The building had been sinking at an alarming rate - about 2 millimeters a year - according to a 2020 study.
www.usatoday.com

The above may or may not be directly related to this morning's tragic events in the Miami area.............

But it certainly merits scrutiny.......
Click to expand...
Well, they didn't call the town Surfside for no reason. Assuming the entire area is sand, even a minor change in sea level could saturate or liquify the soil.

1624912423256.png
 

Condo owners in Surfside building were facing assessments for $15 million worth of repairs​

From link.

Condo owners in the South Florida tower that collapsed last week were facing assessments for millions of dollars worth of repairs -- with payments set to begin a week after the building's deadly fall.
The Champlain Towers South condo association approved a $15 million assessment in April to complete repairs required under the county's 40-year recertification process, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The documents show that more than two years had passed after association members received a report about "major structural damage" in the building before they started the assessment process to pay for necessary repairs.

Owners would have to pay assessments ranging from $80,190 for one-bedroom units to $336,135 for the owner of the building's four-bedroom penthouse, a document sent to the building's residents said. The deadline to pay upfront or choose paying a monthly fee lasting 15 years was July 1.
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An itemized list of planned repairs included new pavers, planter landscape and waterproofing -- addressing some of the issues noted in a 2018 engineer's report, which warned how leaking water was leading to deteriorating concrete. The most costly project listed was "facade, balcony and railing repairs," for $3.4 million.

The 2018 report, prepared for the condo association, had previously estimated that necessary repairs to the Surfside, Fla. building would cost about $9.1 million. It's unclear whether the issues identified by Frank Morabito, the structural engineer who produced the report, contributed to the disaster.

In an April letter to homeowners, condo association President Jean Wodnicki described the progression of decay at the building, saying, "the observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse since the initial inspection." She noted that the "concrete deterioration is accelerating. The roof situation got much worse, so extensive roof repairs had to be incorporated."

"Other previously identified projects have been rolled under the main project. New problems have been identified. Also, costs go up every year," the letter states. "This is how we have gone from the estimated $9,128,433.60 cited in Morabito's 2018 report, to the much larger figure we have today."

The big assessment bill came as an unwelcome surprise to some owners of the building's 136 units.

"We struggled with it and everything," said Isabel Aguero, who owns an 11th-floor condo in the part of the building that stayed standing. She said she thought most of the line items appeared to be more for aesthetic improvements instead of structural fixes to the building -- such as $722,000 for "hallway and public area renovations."
Click to expand...
Aguero and her husband decided to go with the monthly payment, and sent in the paperwork on June 23 so the association would start adding $593 to their homeowner fees, they said. Early the next morning, the building collapsed.

The couple bought their condo two years ago with plans to retire there. But they said they hadn't spent much time in it, as their renovations and furniture deliveries were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Their son, Albert Aguero, was in the tower vacationing with his wife and two children when it collapsed. They woke up to a horrific noise and shaking, and "when we opened the door, we realized just how much damage had occurred," he said. "The apartment to the left looked like it had been sheared in half."

He said that there had been work on the building's roof since earlier this year "that would wake us up every morning with drilling." But larger structural construction had not yet begun, according to a statement from the engineering firm that conducted the 2018 report.

Albert said he was distressed reading the warnings in the 2018 report, which he never saw until after the building fell.

"I was pretty angry at that point, angry that innocent lives had to be lost," he said.
Click to expand...

Condo association under scrutiny​

Since the collapse, the condo association has received scrutiny for the years-long delay between the alarming 2018 report and the building's overhaul. Its representatives have noted that they were delayed by the pandemic and had to take the time to issue competitive bids for the work.

"We have board members who are living here, had their families living here, and are among the missing, so if they knew there was a hazardous issue, they certainly would have taken care of it," Donna DiMaggio Berger, an attorney for the Champlain Towers condo association, told CNN on Friday.

One official from the town of Surfside had previously assured the association that their building was "in very good shape" in November 2018, meeting minutes obtained by CNN show -- even though he had received the report about structural damage two days earlier.

Rosendo Prieto, who worked as the town's building official at the time, made the comments at a meeting of the tower's condo association more than two years before the building's collapse, according to minutes from the November 15, 2018 meeting.
Click to expand...
"Structural engineer report was reviewed by Mr. Prieto," the minutes said, in an apparent reference to the Morabito report. Although Prieto noted that the report "was not in the format for the 40 year certification he determined the necessary data was collected and it appears the building is in very good shape," the minutes say.

A resident of the condo, Susana Alvarez, told NPR that she attended the meeting -- which took place in the building's recreation room -- and remembered a representative of the town saying, "the building was not in bad shape."

Prieto no longer works for Surfside and has not responded to requests for comment from CNN.

Two days before the meeting took place, on November 13, 2018, a member of the condo board, Mara Chouela, forwarded Prieto a copy of the structural engineer's report, according to an email released by the town on Saturday.

And the day after the meeting, Prieto sent another email to Guillermo Olmedillo, the former town manager, saying the condo board meeting "went very well."

"The response was very positive from everyone in the room," Prieto wrote in the Nov. 16 email, which was released by the town Sunday. "All main concerns over their forty year recertification process were addressed."
Click to expand...

Hate to own any of the units in other buildings on that sandbar.
 
APTA-2048 said:
miami.cbslocal.com

City Of North Miami Beach Orders Immediate Closure, Evacuation Of 156-Unit Condo

A North Miami Beach building Recertification Audit has resulted in the immediate closure of The Crestview Towers Condominium and the evacuation of its residents.
miami.cbslocal.com miami.cbslocal.com
Click to expand...

Florida may have Covid under control; but then again, they may simply be masking that through failing to collect or release fulsome data.

I suspect that masking the problem of dangerous condo towers may prove more challenging.

(note I'm not making light of a situation that has already cost many people their lives, and is now, at the very least inconveniencing hundreds more); merely observing that Florida appears to be facing a serious problem, and one that is not easily ignored.

So, this is apparently the result of an engineering report done for the condo in question, back in January of this year, which deemed the condo unsafe structurally and electrically.

I gather it was only in the last days submitted to the City........which determined to due an evacuation pending a more fulsome evaluation.
 
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