Holy crap that kind of stuff is not suppose to happen in a 1st world country!

https://news.yahoo.com/woman-s...phone-154010320.html

A woman standing on her balcony was on the phone to her husband as the Miami condo began to collapse and described the unfolding disaster before the line went dead.

A woman stood on the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment as the Florida condominium collapsed told her husband on the phone that she could see the pool "caving in" seconds before the line went dead, Sky News reported.

Cassie Straton was speaking to her husband, Michael, from their balcony on the south side of the Champlain Towers when she noticed the building started shaking in the early hours of Thursday, her older sister Ashely Dean said.

"Suddenly she says, 'honey, the pool is caving in. The pool is sinking to the ground,'" Dean said, according to Sky News.

"He said, 'what are you talking about?' And she says, 'the ground is shaking, everything's shaking' and then she screamed a blood-curdling scream and the line went dead," Dean added.

What is the timeline for a search and rescue operation in a situation like this? I read something saying big machinery would not be used in case there are survivors, but at some point I would think time becomes the bigger danger.

Does this collapse make the adjacent towers more susceptible to collapsing themselves moving forward?

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
What is the timeline for a search and rescue operation in a situation like this? I read something saying big machinery would not be used in case there are survivors, but at some point I would think time becomes the bigger danger.

That is a tough question.
I remember back in the eighty's, the Mexico City earthquake, a hospital had collapsed. They had rescues several people after 4 of 5 days and some babies after about a week.
I guess if you are in a void space and not seriously injured you can go about 4 to 5 days without water, after that there is less of a chance of finding survives however anything is possible.
At some point someone will have to make a very difficult decision.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
What is the timeline for a search and rescue operation in a situation like this? I read something saying big machinery would not be used in case there are survivors, but at some point I would think time becomes the bigger danger.

One person survived 17 days in a collapsed building.

The Sampoong Department Store collapse in Seoul saw 502 killed and 937 injured.

“ The last to be rescued, 19-year-old Park Seung-hyun was pulled from the wreckage 17 days after the collapse with a few scratches; 18-year-old Yoo Ji-hwan was pulled out after nearly 12 days; a man rescued after 9 days reported that other trapped survivors had drowned from the rain and from the water used for fire suppression.”

The collapse was entirely due to greed. Executives evacuated the building without telling customers of the threat. The CEO didn’t bother to tell his daughter-in-law. She became trapped in the collapse.

I recall the uproar as the building remains were hauled off. Relatives of the missing were searching the dump site for bodies.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...tment_Store_collapse

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
What is the timeline for a search and rescue operation in a situation like this? I read something saying big machinery would not be used in case there are survivors, but at some point I would think time becomes the bigger danger.

I would think it can't be more than 5 days. It's Miami, so it's at least 85 degrees and with very high humidity. And there was a fire underneath the building due to gas from the parking garage, so that would only add to the heat. Unless someone somehow had access to water, I cannot see them making it more than 5 days. And that would assume they were somehow uninjured and in good shape to begin with.

Most of the news stories I have read thus far would seem to point to many of the residents being elderly.

Link

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

(CNN)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.

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."
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.

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.

The death toll from the Florida condo collapse reaches 11 as rescuers race to find 150 people still missing

"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."

video of the collapse

https://www.miamiherald.com/ne...rticle252328493.html

This was partially posted earlier

"Delayed by the pandemic". Lots of folks using this excuse these days.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
"Delayed by the pandemic". Lots of folks using this excuse these days.

Well, there IS an element of truth to many such claims. We have a major renovation project at my place of work, and I know we have been delayed by the pandemic. Just getting face masks and other PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) has been a challenge, as everybody and their dog was buying up (and hoarding) masks and other PPE. The supply chain was disrupted (just look at the availability of new vehicles), and work crews were often put in quarantine and therefore unable to work (if 1 person on a 10-person work crew tested positive, they likely quarantined the entire crew).

I can easily believe that work was delayed because of the pandemic. I can also believe it may have been a desperate attempt to avoid blame and liability.

Wonder what is so different about bldg construction techniques of last 50 years vs earlier? I was thinking of the Galvez hotel in Galveston finished in 1911 and exposed to salty sea air all these years. Of course, it is much shorter, maybe 8 or 9 stories. Appears to be concrete construction and I assume “I” beam.

Older high rise bldgs all across the US sit on the coast and we never hear of deterioration due to salt/ water. Think Empire State bldg and many old high rise older hotels.

So what’s different? Post tension floors? Cheaper construction methods? How did they prevent rust in the old days?

quote:

Originally posted by maxdog:
Wonder what is so different about bldg construction techniques of last 50 years vs earlier? I was thinking of the Galvez hotel in Galveston finished in 1911 and exposed to salty sea air all these years. Of course, it is much shorter, maybe 8 or 9 stories. Appears to be concrete construction and I assume “I” beam.

Older high rise bldgs all across the US sit on the coast and we never hear of deterioration due to salt/ water. Think Empire State bldg and many old high rise older hotels.

So what’s different? Post tension floors? Cheaper construction methods? How did they prevent rust in the old days?

Consider this, that building, like those around it, has been through numerous hurricanes throughout the past couple decades and survived. That leads me to believe there might be more to the sinkhole story than we know yet. If it stood through all those hurricanes, you have to really wonder is something beneath it created to structural issue that brought it down. Time will tell.

I'm guessing that continued avoidance of assessing units annually, fees that were kept low because lots of retired people not wanting to see increased costs for units they bought 20-30 years ago resulted in maintenance and repairs not being done, or being "patched".

So every year they shuffled them forward to the next association board to deal with. They kept a lower fee structure that only covered immediate costs, nothing or very little to be put away into reserves or not enough ending up with some reserve money but nobody let any of it out to do big repairs, basically managed repairs from the existing fees not having the funds to go all in or thinking it wasn't necessary.

Heck the board could have asked for an assessment vote and the owners turned them down, sticking the board without an option to raise funds.

Now a 40 Year inspection looms, so in 2018 someone orders an engineering report, basically, they have no choice so they finally get busy on the inspection. The inspection/reports lays out the massive projects and damages, turns out there are millions of dollars in repairs that must be made or they will fail the building inspection and people will have to move out if the building is condemned.

The board votes to do the work, no choice, and votes to assess everyone, setups up loans with the assessment payments going to a lender and start repairs, only it's too late.

10, 20 or 30 years of delayed work, half ass fixes to keep costs down, not enough money in reserve, massive assessments pushed off to the next guy, and time just ran out.... perfect storm...

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
10, 20 or 30 years of delayed work, half ass fixes to keep costs down, not enough money in reserve, massive assessments pushed off to the next guy, and time just ran out.... perfect storm...

The counter debate to that is, if that's the case, then there are buildings all over Florida that should be falling down sometime soon. The same approach to putting off repairs and updates occurs everywhere throughout the state without buildings simply falling down. I'm going to stick with there being some other factor being involved that we've not see identified just yet. Maybe that 'and' the lack of repairs resulted in what we've seen happen.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by maxdog:
Wonder what is so different about bldg construction techniques of last 50 years vs earlier? I was thinking of the Galvez hotel in Galveston finished in 1911 and exposed to salty sea air all these years. Of course, it is much shorter, maybe 8 or 9 stories. Appears to be concrete construction and I assume “I” beam.

Older high rise bldgs all across the US sit on the coast and we never hear of deterioration due to salt/ water. Think Empire State bldg and many old high rise older hotels.

So what’s different? Post tension floors? Cheaper construction methods? How did they prevent rust in the old days?

Consider this, that building, like those around it, has been through numerous hurricanes throughout the past couple decades and survived. That leads me to believe there might be more to the sinkhole story than we know yet. If it stood through all those hurricanes, you have to really wonder is something beneath it created to structural issue that brought it down. Time will tell.

A lot can happen structurally from a half day of hurricane winds hitting a building every 5 to 7 years. Add in some corrosion on the rebar from pool and roof leaks and you have structural elements that can't take tension.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
10, 20 or 30 years of delayed work, half ass fixes to keep costs down, not enough money in reserve, massive assessments pushed off to the next guy, and time just ran out.... perfect storm...

The counter debate to that is, if that's the case, then there are buildings all over Florida that should be falling down sometime soon. The same approach to putting off repairs and updates occurs everywhere throughout the state without buildings simply falling down. I'm going to stick with there being some other factor being involved that we've not see identified just yet. Maybe that 'and' the lack of repairs resulted in what we've seen happen.

Would not be surprised at all if there are not several buildings in need of repairs that if ignored could result in the same or similar problems.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
I'm guessing that continued avoidance of assessing units annually, fees that were kept low because lots of retired people not wanting to see increased costs for units they bought 20-30 years ago resulted in maintenance and repairs not being done, or being "patched".

So every year they shuffled them forward to the next association board to deal with. They kept a lower fee structure that only covered immediate costs, nothing or very little to be put away into reserves or not enough ending up with some reserve money but nobody let any of it out to do big repairs, basically managed repairs from the existing fees not having the funds to go all in or thinking it wasn't necessary.

Heck the board could have asked for an assessment vote and the owners turned them down, sticking the board without an option to raise funds.

Now a 40 Year inspection looms, so in 2018 someone orders an engineering report, basically, they have no choice so they finally get busy on the inspection. The inspection/reports lays out the massive projects and damages, turns out there are millions of dollars in repairs that must be made or they will fail the building inspection and people will have to move out if the building is condemned.

The board votes to do the work, no choice, and votes to assess everyone, setups up loans with the assessment payments going to a lender and start repairs, only it's too late.

10, 20 or 30 years of delayed work, half ass fixes to keep costs down, not enough money in reserve, massive assessments pushed off to the next guy, and time just ran out.... perfect storm...

I will echo this with a few caveats. First off, these are not retired old folks on a pension. These are million dollar condos where the owners can absorb the cost and CHOSE not to.

Second, while there are other dilapidated buildings, this is the only one I have heard of that had 1-2 FEET of seawater rising up into the parking structure when the tide is high. That's nuts. I think when all this shakes out, you end up with a sinkhole of some type and poor maintenance that otherwise would have survived the sinkhole if it had been done properly and timely.

So very sad that this happened.

quote:

Originally posted by Timdogg6:
Second, while there are other dilapidated buildings, this is the only one I have heard of that had 1-2 FEET of seawater rising up into the parking structure when the tide is high. That's nuts. I think when all this shakes out, you end up with a sinkhole of some type and poor maintenance that otherwise would have survived the sinkhole if it had been done properly and timely.

So very sad that this happened.

Where did you learn about tidal water in the parking structure? If that is accurate it's amazing to me that the building was not already condemned. That type of water movement multiple times every day would erode the building's support pretty significantly. Think of a seawall that has a breach in it - it doesn't take long for the tidal movement to carry away the soil behind it and leave a pretty big void.