We now have a potential lead as to why the Miami condo complex, Champlain Towers South, collapsed.
The deepest puddle of standing water, according to the contractor, was located around parking spot 78 — an area that building plans show is located directly under the pool deck where in a 2018 inspection report, engineer Frank Morabito had flagged a “major error” in the original design that was allowing water intrusion and causing serious damage to the structural concrete slabs below.
He did not photograph that standing water because he was there to examine the pool and what was underneath it.
In the pool equipment room, located on the south side of the underground garage, the contractor saw another problem — exposed and corroding rebar in the concrete slab overhead. He snapped some pictures and sent them to his supervisor along with a note expressing concern that the job might be a bit more complicated than expected. He worried they would have to remove pool pipes to allow concrete restoration experts access to repair the slabs.
Area Believed To Be Champlain Towers South Pool Foundation, June 22, 2021.
So the building appears to have been rotting at the root. To put another way, imagine you are walking on stilts. However your stilts are rotted wood. Over time the wood becomes much too weak to hold your weight. Then, well..
You fall.
However this may not be what happened. Clickbait pictures make nice headlines that bring eyeballs but may be entirely irresponsible if presented as definitive proof.
But this is not definitive and should not be taken as such. It will take a while to allow true engineering experts to get to the bottom of what happened, and we should only take these pics as potential clues, not a complete understanding of what occurred.
That said, like I mentioned, pics, even if accurate, only tell part of the tale.
MIAMI (AP) — After a catastrophic Hurricane Andrew revealed how lax building codes had become in the country’s most storm-prone state, Florida began requiring sturdier construction. Now, experts say a monstrously strong Hurricane Irma could become the most serious test of Florida’s storm-worthiness since the 1992 disaster.
We know this complex was built in 1981. So whatever the codes were that were so lax as mentioned in the above article, probably were what the towers were built under.
While it is fair to mention that Andrew did much to devastate residential housing, a fair amount of commercial buildings were destroyed as well. From further in story:
In Andrew’s wake, Florida mandated the most stringent building codes in the U.S. Since 2001, structures statewide must be built to withstand winds of 111 mph (178 kph) and up.
This is a good thing. Also we should not assume that the towers were built poorly originally, they might have been maintenanced poorly, they might have taken damage from storms, any number of things could have happened that do not point to some sort of criminal negligence, although that remains a possibility.
But the question must be asked: how many coastal buldings in Florida or anywhere have similar concerns, perhaps constructed by the same contractor, or prone to the same weaknesses? Do we know? In Long Beach, CA they are not waiting to find out.
Long Beach’s Building Superintendent David Khorram, pointed out that the building that collapsed in Florida was built about 40 years ago and there are many mid and high rise residential buildings that age in Long Beach.
..The codes for the most part remain similar between the one enforced 40 years ago and the one today. However, the Sylmar quake prompted subtle changes.
"We are following what is going on in Florida closely," said Khorram, who also teaches at Saddleback College. The lessons from what comes out of the Florida collapse will be as useful to his inspectors as well as students of engineering, design and architecture, he emphasized. "The building was there for 40 or so years and while the collapse was sudden, the cause probably wasn’t," he added.
This is good. And I expect that inspectors all over the country will be working double-time. Also good. But I need to point something out that many have missed: these were indeed luxury level condos.
To the tune of:
Until Monday, units in Champlain South were on the market for more than $600,000, with a homeowners association fee of over $900.
But let us go back to the 1970’s, when we knew how to approach beachfront property, even if we didn’t want to pay to.
By way of preventive measures, coastal communities must impose tough building standards, setback lines and elevation restrictions. Pilings are essential, but they are still not required for most beachfront buildings. Floor slabs are placed on sand dunes and hotel‐and homeowners return to find their buildings have collapsed after being easily undermined by waves. Many roofs that go sailing off would stay in place if they were tied to the walls by metal straps. But builder lobbies are strong, state legislatures bend to their pressures. For four years, the Texas Coastal and Marine Council has worked with eminent scientists and engineers in defining hazards and planning a building code that would minimize damage-
So were there pilings used in the construction of Champlain Towers? Yes, but..this is scary-
Standing water on the pool deck had damaged the underlying concrete, and in particular, the parking garage beneath the pool deck showed signs of structural stress, in the form of "sizable" cracks and exposed rebar that was corroding in various locations. "Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion," Morabito wrote. "Failure to replace waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially."
Given the building's age, however, the reported damage was "fairly typical," Kenneth Direktor, an attorney for the building's condominium association, told The Washington Post. "Something horrible happened," Direktor said. "This isn't the result of hairline cracks in the concrete."
The pool picture above is “fairly typical.” Ok. Well that seems, uh, not comforting. Another possiblity-
Another explanation for the collapse is that a void or a sinkhole opened up under the reinforced concrete pilings that sit beneath the building, causing some pilings to shift downward while others remained in place, David Peraza, a structural engineer at Exponent, an engineering and scientific consulting firm, told the times. "Whether there's something geologically under the building that caused this, that's definitely something that's got to be investigated," he said.
So one has to be forgiven for one’s mind racing to the fact that these towers are potentially, not a one-off in possible design flaws or eventual tragedies. We just don’t know how prevalent this problem is, or isn’t, but I know this: I am not buying any high rise beachfront property anytime soon, especially built before 1992 or so.
My man “Jimmy Rockford” (James Garner) probably had beachfront living right all along.
Not much to look at, still, not far to fall.
-ROC
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