Miami condo building falls down

[T&C]

1 hour ago, Heitz said:

Engineer Warned of ‘Major Structural Damage’ at Florida Condo Complex 

A consultant in 2018 urged the managers to repair cracked columns and crumbling concrete. The work was finally about to get underway when the building collapsed. 

nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us/miami-building-collapse-investigation.html

 

Yikes. Both the management board and original designer / engineer are in some real trouble here...

Yep... they failed a lot of people alright. This article details a bit more than what I've heard so far. 

 

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/us-world-news/2021/06/26/condo-search-grows-dire-with-159-still-unaccounted-for-1

[ExiledInIllinois]

3 hours ago, Beerball said:

Are you forgetting you don't believe in climate change?  Since you argue against everything I can see how you'd lose track.

Question everything.  That is all. 

If you read carefully, I was faulting CC... 

[Beerball]

1 hour ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Question everything.  That is all. 

If you read carefully, I was faulting CC... 

I realize what you were faulting. A couple weeks ago you argued against climate change.

[ExiledInIllinois]

5 minutes ago, Beerball said:

I realize what you were faulting. A couple weeks ago you argued against climate change.

I do from time to time. No big deal.

 

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" ~Song of Myself, Walt Whitman.

 

YOU should try it sometime.  CliffNotes explanation:

 

"When Whitman writes, "Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes)," he is embracing something that is typically thought of as a shortcoming or something that makes a person appear to be unreliable. He makes the act of contradicting oneself something positive: a person who contradicts himself, in Whitman's view, is a person who has more to discover about himself, more to contribute to the world from himself. More often, we are told that we must adhere to our principles all the time, but we rarely discuss the fact that those principles can change. We are told that we must be consistent or risk appearing weak and unreliable: Whitman clearly doesn't care a pittance for such appearances. It is as though, for him, the person who never contradicts himself hasn't considered life deeply enough or leads a too-simple interior life."

 

 

[Wacka]

1 hour ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Question everything.  That is all. 

If you read carefully, I was faulting CC... 

Is that Chinese Carp?

Edited June 26, 2021 by Wacka

[ALF]

Is deregulation  good ? Lack of safety inspections and enforcement .

[RaoulDuke79]

6 minutes ago, ALF said:

Is deregulation  good ? Lack of safety inspections and enforcement .

As with most things, finding the appropriate balance is key.

[T&C]

Had no idea that condo owners could be on the hook for this much money.

 

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/ap-top-news/2021/06/27/before-building-collapse-9-million-in-repairs-needed

 

"Owners of units in a Florida oceanfront condo building that collapsed with deadly consequences were just days away from a deadline to start making steep payments toward more than $9 million in major repairs that had been recommended nearly three years earlier.

 

That cost estimate, from the Morabito Consultants engineering firm in 2018, meant owners at Champlain Towers South were facing payments of anywhere from $80,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $330,000 or so for a penthouse, to be paid all at once or in installments. Their first deadline was July 1.

 

One resident whose apartment was spared, Adalberto Aguero, had just taken out a loan to cover his $80,000 bill.

 

“I figured I would pay it off after they fixed the building. I didn’t want to pay it off before because you never know,” said Aguero, adding that he pulled paperwork to make the installment payments a day after Thursday’s collapse. “I said cancel everything.”

 

More in the article but, wow that is a lot of dough.

 

[Just Jack]

Quote

On Thursday morning at around 1.30am, Cassie was standing on the balcony of her apartment on the fourth floor of Champlain Towers South overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. She was speaking on the phone with her husband Michael Stratton. "Suddenly she says, 'honey the pool is caving in, the pool is sinking to the ground'," Ashley recounts. "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."

 

'Honey, the pool is caving in': Woman says sister was on phone to husband as she stood on collapsed Miami building balcony

 

See what experts say is the probable sequence of collapse at the Florida condo tower

Edited June 28, 2021 by Just Jack

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article252394393.html

 

[dpberr]

18 hours ago, T&C said:

Had no idea that condo owners could be on the hook for this much money.

 

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/ap-top-news/2021/06/27/before-building-collapse-9-million-in-repairs-needed

 

"Owners of units in a Florida oceanfront condo building that collapsed with deadly consequences were just days away from a deadline to start making steep payments toward more than $9 million in major repairs that had been recommended nearly three years earlier.

 

That cost estimate, from the Morabito Consultants engineering firm in 2018, meant owners at Champlain Towers South were facing payments of anywhere from $80,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $330,000 or so for a penthouse, to be paid all at once or in installments. Their first deadline was July 1.

 

One resident whose apartment was spared, Adalberto Aguero, had just taken out a loan to cover his $80,000 bill.

 

“I figured I would pay it off after they fixed the building. I didn’t want to pay it off before because you never know,” said Aguero, adding that he pulled paperwork to make the installment payments a day after Thursday’s collapse. “I said cancel everything.”

 

More in the article but, wow that is a lot of dough.

 

I suspect that decades of previous owners just kicked the maintenance can down the road.  The first rule of being wealthy is never spend your own money.  

 

That condo association, past and present members, is going to be sued from here until eternity.  Can't sue anyone else involved with the project as they are all dead.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Rut-oh!  I know it was mentioned early on... But has there been any uptick on any conspiracy theories:

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uss-gerald-ford-shock-trials-earthquake-florida/#app

 

Weird coincidence! ?? Could it have jiggled (days earlier) an already weak structure?

[Saxum]

On 6/27/2021 at 8:44 PM, T&C said:

"Owners of units in a Florida oceanfront condo building that collapsed with deadly consequences were just days away from a deadline to start making steep payments toward more than $9 million in major repairs that had been recommended nearly three years earlier.

 

That cost estimate, from the Morabito Consultants engineering firm in 2018, meant owners at Champlain Towers South were facing payments of anywhere from $80,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $330,000 or so for a penthouse, to be paid all at once or in installments. Their first deadline was July 1.

 

Could someone be so greedy and heartless to have HELPED building collapse and just take insurance money before they needed to pay?

It happens with arsonists but would require more knowledge.

[Back2Buff]

17 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Rut-oh!  I know it was mentioned early on... But has there been any uptick on any conspiracy theories:

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uss-gerald-ford-shock-trials-earthquake-florida/#app

 

Weird coincidence! ?? Could it have jiggled (days earlier) an already weak structure?

 

The issue would be with the building.  Nothing to do with the test.  If your building can't sustain that, there are issues with your building. 

[Captain Hindsight]

On 6/24/2021 at 4:08 PM, The Avenger said:

It's a terrible story and one that we don't see too often in this country, fortunately - I have seen stories about similar collapses in third world countries and the devastation is incredible.

 

If there are inspections my guess is that that they wouldn't tell you much unless you could see things like cracks or concrete erosion. If floor joist connections were made improperly, insufficient rebar was used in concrete slabs, concrete was too porous to support designed load you probably wouldn't be able to detect such things, even if you did a pretty thorough structural inspection. Sadly, they only learn about these things after a tragedy. 

Its a matter of time until that happens here. Our infrastructure is incredibly outdated and the more regulations that are cast aside for the sake of profit, the more frequently this will happen

[Johnny Hammersticks]

So I’m down here in Miami Beach on vacation this week.  Our resort is just a shade over 4 miles north of the condo collapse.  I have found it interesting that no one down here really talks about it, and there seems to be very little coverage of it on the local news.  

 

I was watching the local news yesterday morning expecting a big “story” with a lot of details.  It was just a 5 second blurb about how the search for survivors was still going on.  No other details at all.  Very strange.

[TBBills]

3 hours ago, Johnny Hammersticks said:

So I’m down here in Miami Beach on vacation this week.  Our resort is just a shade over 4 miles north of the condo collapse.  I have found it interesting that no one down here really talks about it, and there seems to be very little coverage of it on the local news.  

 

I was watching the local news yesterday morning expecting a big “story” with a lot of details.  It was just a 5 second blurb about how the search for survivors was still going on.  No other details at all.  Very strange.

What else are you supposed to say?

22 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Rut-oh!  I know it was mentioned early on... But has there been any uptick on any conspiracy theories:

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uss-gerald-ford-shock-trials-earthquake-florida/#app

 

Weird coincidence! ?? Could it have jiggled (days earlier) an already weak structure?

That happened over 100 miles off the coast.

[Johnny Hammersticks]

2 hours ago, TBBills said:

What else are you supposed to say?

 

Oh, I don’t know.  It is a HUGE international news story.  There’s probably going to be 160+ confirmed dead before it’s all said and done, sadly.  Also some information about the 2018 reports related to the building being deemed in need of serious maintenance.  The city building inspector announcing at some community meeting shortly thereafter that the building was “in good shape.” Ya know...stuff like that maybe?

[TBBills]

14 minutes ago, Johnny Hammersticks said:

 

Oh, I don’t know.  It is a HUGE international news story.  There’s probably going to be 160+ confirmed dead before it’s all said and done, sadly.  Also some information about the 2018 reports related to the building being deemed in need of serious maintenance.  The city building inspector announcing at some community meeting shortly thereafter that the building was “in good shape.” Ya know...stuff like that maybe?

I guess so but I think we know everything we can so far.

[Just Jack]

There are pictures from under the pool deck, just two days before the collapse, showing the damaged concrete....

 

Two days before condo collapse, a pool contractor photographed this damage in garage