Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 02 151

[dik]

thread815-484587


Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[TheGreenLama]

"Majority of Florida condo board quit in 2019 as squabbling residents dragged out plans for repairs."

"Despite increasingly dire warnings from the board, many condo owners balked at paying for the extensive improvements, which ballooned in price from about $9 million to more than $15 million over the past three years as the building continued to deteriorate, records show." From Washington Post article Link

 

[FacEngrPE]

Since no one has posted it yet, actual tides vs predicted tides from charts can be approximated from NOAA tide stations "South Port Everglades", FL "Virginia Key, Biscayne Bay, FL". Sunnyside is halfway between these.
June 24 1:30 a.m (I think this is the approximate time of the collapse.)
At both tide gauges the tide was falling, and not that far from low tide.
This is another data point, that might have some impact on the stresses in the building as close to the shore water pressure in the ground changes with tide? I am not going to guess if the change of support from tidal action has any impact on the event.

I plotted these using local Miami time, and NAVD88 elevations. The drawings precede NAVD88, so they likely use a different elevation datum.

Reference Station Home Pages, look for Available Products>Water levels

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=8722956

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=8723214

 

[epoxybot]

I believe it is posted above but you really have to read the Surfside Building Inspector's letter to Guillermo Olmedillo, Town Manager.
He describes the meeting as successful. The tenor of the letter, seems to be that he alleviated their fears regarding the Structural Engineer's report.
There is something wrong with a city's building department when the individual that reads a Structural Engineers report and then offers 'interpretation' that downplays what the report contains; is not an engineer. Rosendo Prieto, the building inspector at that time was qualified for 'Plan Review' but that is for Code, not actual structural plan review. Both the city and Prieto are in deep water. Link

 

[spinspecdrt]

That is a great point about the fire sprinklers setting of the alarm. Any idea if there were fire sprinklers in the basement? If there were, why didn't the alarm go off? If there were no sprinklers, should there have been?

 

[Archie264]

>>>Both the city and Prieto are in deep water.

In the US municipal engineers are statutorily absolved of liability, so I'm led to understand.

 

[ash060]

I have to agree with TheGreenLama, most homeowners are going to bulk when they are told they have to come up with 100k to do repairs. It is just not easy for folks to do. I lived in a south Florida community for several years that had HOA dues, and part of the dues went to pay for water to the units which was a majority of the cost of the dues. Our yearly meeting would bring several residents who would complain about the HOA dues and demand that the plumbing be upgraded so that water would be removed from the HOA dues. The board would say the same thing every time, we looked into and it would require a $3000 assessment per unit, as soon they said that everyone would bulk and say to leave the plumbing the way it is, and that was just 3k I can't imangine what residents would say to 30 times that.

It isn't an easy situation.

 

[Mark R]

That is a great point about the fire sprinklers setting of the alarm. Any idea if there were fire sprinklers in the basement? If there were, why didn't the alarm go off? If there were no sprinklers, should there have been?

I'm not sure what Florida codes were at that time. In many areas sprinklers in the park area would not have been required in the timeframe that the building was built.

 

[Kestrel42]

Has anyone actually seen the 2020 Morabito Consultant report referenced in the letter the head of the condo board sent out to the residents in April of this year? I’ve seen the original 2018 report posted in this thread, but several news stories keep referencing the newer report. NPR has some more recent pictures of the concrete damage from 2020 as well; I’d like to read it if anyone can find it!

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-u...ed-town-officials-demanded-only-minor-changes

 

[Ingenuity]

I'm not sure what Florida codes were at that time. In many areas sprinklers in the park area would not have been required in the timeframe that the building was built.

Drawing from ROLL 1-0005 details this sprinkler layout in the basement parking.

 

[IEGeezer]

Posted by the Town of Surfside not long ago: (EDIT: Looks like mostly balconies, but there is a lot structural work.)

https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/do...es-concrete-restoration.pdf?sfvrsn=3b131194_2

https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/do...-restorations-balconies.pdf?sfvrsn=39131194_2

https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/do...e-restoration-balconies.pdf?sfvrsn=36131194_2

 

[Sym P. le]

I've reconsidered the Google Earth overlays posted earlier since the parallax was more problematic than anticipated. I'm posting a GIMP file of several layers that superimposes three layouts (Garage, Lobby, Typical Floor) from the city documents over a Google Earth layer skewed to match the property lines of the drawings (I still have to identify the unit numbers with better certainty, thus they aren't labelled).

The following image is what falls out. It identifies the potentially broken column as one that supports a planter outside of the building footprint.

From earlier:

It's not clear whether these planters were original or a refit.

This does not suggest an alternate initiation opposed to the work that warrenslo did earlier, rather it just explores what the TikTok video reveals. I believe it supports the theory that the pool deck collapsed several minutes prior to the main event and shows the extent of this precipitating event. As others have stated, the deck collapse likely triggered fire alarms, and would explain the quick arrival of the fire department.

 

[spsalso]

I believe there WERE sprinklers in the garage, and that they show in a photo posted by Engr1888 at 3:04 on June 27 in the now-closed first part of this topic.

I suggested some time earlier that the alarm that should have been transmitted to the fire department would have a time stamp. This would then indicate the time for the pool deck collapse.


spsalso

 

[Spartan5]

I believe it is posted above but you really have to read the Surfside Building Inspector's letter to Guillermo Olmedillo, Town Manager.
He describes the meeting as successful. The tenor of the letter, seems to be that he alleviated their fears regarding the Structural Engineer's report.
There is something wrong with a city's building department when the individual that reads a Structural Engineers report and then offers 'interpretation' that downplays what the report contains; is not an engineer. Rosendo Prieto, the building inspector at that time was qualified for 'Plan Review' but that is for Code, not actual structural plan review. Both the city and Prieto are in deep water.

The email follows below. It doesn’t say anything about alleviating anyone’s fears, offering an interpretation, or downplaying anything.

I’m not looking to point fingers because we still don’t know what happened. But as downplaying things go, the structural issues were given a paragraph or two on page 7 of 9 of the report. Subsequent to that, the Structural Engineer completed extensive design work over the course of 14 month. I’ve yet to see where any sort of alarm was raised about a building that was primed to collapse.

Perhaps there was a geologic failure or some element of the construction that was not per plans/spec. But other than that…

https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/do...uth-association-meeting.pdf?sfvrsn=543d1194_2

ABO Pena and myself were invited and attended the Condo Board/Unit Owner meeting at the Champlain Tower South last night and it went very well. The response was very positive from everyone in the room. All main concerns over their forty year recertification process were addressed. This particular building is not due to begin their forty year until 2021 but they have decided to start the process early which I wholeheartedly endorse and wish that this trend would catch on with other properties. If you have any questions please let me know. Thank you.

I have a hard time hanging this on the building inspector.

 

[DB27]

It's not clear whether these planters were original or a refit.

Reviewing the aerials, previously, the planters had palm trees in them since at least 1999. That was until 2018 when the trees were removed.

Link for Miami-Dade Aerial History

 

[Kreemerz]

I'm moving further away from sinkhole or vibrations from a seismic event (submarine quake).
Further away from blame being cast on building contractors.
Neither of those are factors here.

 

[Sym P. le]

If the planters had drainage issues, it's possible that they rotted the columns upon which the sat. OUCH!

 

[nononononono]

Replying to spsalso:

Miami Dade County alarms records are managed by Captain Nelson Enriquez, Deputy Fire Marshall, 305-416-1692

 

[Sym P. le]

Using an aerial from 2005, the proximity of columns K10 and L10 (identified by warrenslo earlier) to "column 27" visible in the TikTok video is telling. Planters sit atop most of the columns along grid 11.1 and this arrangement has been in effect for some time.

Parking stall 78, which is adjacent K10, was reported to have standing water issues.

 

[Teguci]

So here's my latest story/hypothesis:
The slab and beams on the building side of the planter columns failed in shear due to hidden deterioration. Concrete beams on either side of the planters, framed into/near the building columns started putting more moment on the building columns causing cracking and noise that was experienced by rooms 111 and 611. In addition, the loss of back span put more moment on the adjacent plaza slab span which yielded in moment until suddenly failing the slab to column connection in shear. This sudden failure then quickly overloaded the columns adjacent to the 29 ft span next to the pool. Then somehow this failure causes the failure of the building columns maybe a minute after the plaza slab failure.

 

[dik]

More news...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/30/poli...vestigation-florida-condo-collapse/index.html

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik