Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 05 111

[SFCharlie]

A continuation of our discussion of this failure. Best to read the other threads first to avoid rehashing things already discussed.
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 02
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 03
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 04


SF Charlie
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[MaudSTL]

Where I live, sound (like gunfire) ricochets off hard surfaces and is very loud. Those hard surfaces don’t dampen sound at all, so it really carries. I have often heard thunder set off car alarms, so a loud crash setting off an alarm wouldn’t surprise me.

 

[bones206]

Here’s a snip from the interview linked above. He does say the parking lot had fallen and many cars were sunken.

 

[jbourne8]

Oh good catch.. I don't know Spanish at all and those interviews are hard to follow. It seems like he's describing the full building collapse though, especially since he says he heard car alarms ringing and saw a lot of dust, and none of that shows up in the tiktok video. Their story is very strange since it's so hard to place within the rest of the stories.. and those all fit together.

 

[MaudSTL]

And here’s the WaPo story on what Sara Nir saw. This is an archived version.

Link

…and also, from the same WaPo piece, it looks like one of the Nirs noticed Vazquez and Accardi by the elevator.

 

[bones206]

My Spanish is very basic, but from what I gathered from the interview, they heard a noise as they were getting on the elevator in the garage. Got off in the lobby, which was filled with dust and loud noise. They didn’t know what to think: tornado, attack…it was like a movie scene. They fled the building with others and then noticed the collapsed parking lot and sunken cars with their alarms blaring. They were all in a state of shock gathering themselves for 2-3 minutes when they heard the sound of the building collapse. A sound he describes as impossible to relate.

 

[AutisticBez]

Dude, it's not doxing to ask where their parking spot is, in a building that no longer exists. It's like, if I tell you I once lived at 9 Kinnoull Grove Glen Waverley Victoria Australia. That isn't doxing. I once lived there a long time ago.

The addresses of people who lived in the fallen building is not stalking or doxing. I mean, if one of these people in the swim lane turns out to have a car that has a giant gapping hole in the front. Surely that's evidence right?

I'm just saying, someone if they hit that column, knows too much, and isn't interested in coming forward. But if someone can get eyes on which vehicle they drove into the building, well, maybe that can be a bypass of their honesty.

 

[jbourne8]

MaudSTL, it's hard to know if they actually said that since they aren't quoting them, and reporters seem to be adding a spin onto some of these stories. I haven't heard her say that in the video interviews she's done, which seem to be more accurate.. like this one for example -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gie0XVOFl0

In this one she says that she went to security at 1:10, and that "all of the garage collapsed." But I mean, we know that's not entirely true either.

 

[jbourne8]

AutisticBez, I never said that was doxing.. someone posted info on where exactly Eric Zion lived in NYC, which absolutely is doxing. Lots of posts have been edited now, so it's probably hard to read the convo now really. We're all cool now too, your comment really isn't necessary.

Asking about assigned parking spots is what I'd call unethical instead. Imagine a completely innocent person is parked in spot 27 that has a strange story but didn't cause the collapse, and ends up being stalked and harassed because of our research.. that gets you into an illegal territory no matter if you want to call it doxing or not. Some of us have serious careers that we need to worry about, and we can't be attached to any sort of witch hunt. There's absolutely nothing that even backs up this silly car theory. The roof theory is even more plausible than it is.

You are not going to gather any good evidence against anyone online either.. and it's silly to think that's even possible. This forum is about engineering, so it doesn't matter who hit the column.. we're just discussing what could have happened with the building. We can't get into a territory where we start placing blame, or anyone professional is going to have to leave the conversation. Leave that for the police.

 

[zebraso]

My take on image enhancement. Nothing special, although I like the result. Still can't read the license plate though.

 

[1503-44]

Emty's links to Vasquez interview.
They heard noises when going up the elevator to the lobby arriving into a cloud of smoke and dust. Vasquez mentions hearing two times, more thundering noises. He only direction he mentions of these noises was from the parking area.

According to his account, as the text on bones206 06:50 post confirms, it would appear that Vasquez only heard, but did not actually see any damages to the parking area at that time, because that says, "There we now understand that part of what was the parking area had fallen, with many cars sunk."

 

[bones206]

Since the interview seems to confirm the parking lot slab near the lobby collapsed prior to the building collapse AND noting that those columns exhibited punching shear failure, that would indicate a generally overloaded slab. The strange noises people were hearing could have been one column after another failing at its slab connection. Each time the load would get redistributed to adjacent columns until there was just too much load to go around and a whole area of slab just drops.

 

[bones206]

No, that quote in the snippet is in the context of them making their way out of the building. He’s saying they got outside and REALIZED that the parking area had collapsed. That’s my interpretation anyways. In the interview he’s giving a chronological account, but he’s obviously emotional and having a hard time conveying the gravity and trauma of it all. I feel quite badly for them.

 

[jbourne8]

Sym P. le, I'm having a hard time seeing it any other way too. This is how I see the tiktok video.. and I don't get what else could possibly cause this sort of destruction down there. Just really soft cement from all of the water that was never tested? It seems too extensive and immediate for that.

Also, I don't get how those garage lights are still on if that part of the garage is actually collapsed.. I sort of doubt that's the case. It's far too bright to be moonlight. If Cassondra was in 410 and she saw the pool deck collapse from the edge of 111 to the opposite edge by the car parking lot.. there's no way she would have stopped to call her husband too.. it just doesn't really fit.

 

[Auri]

This may be a tiny detail, but there are two separate versions of that garage video taken by Adriana Sarmiento. The first is the Tiktok vm everyone has been enhancing,

https://www.tiktok.com/@adrianitacastillero/video/6979296632919706886

The second was sent to various news outlets and the NYPost version posted above is vertically cropped. A fuller version is at USAToday:

https://www.usatoday.com/videos/new...to-garage-minutes-before-collapse/7827932002/

The difference aside from wider angle and a bit less resolution is they were actually taken at different times - listen to the audio - and at slightly different angles just 3-4 inches apart - observe the parking space # on the column. What takes me back is that a little less data makes that circular "washing machine" below the gate marquee appear as an irregular shape. I think that speaks to the perils of overly enhancing a compressed video frame.

Additionally, several here have suggested the blue-greenish tint in some of the debris may be part of a construction bag used to hold roofing paper, or even planter material. I think that given the "harsh" fluorescent lighting washing out most colors they are more likely the bright patio chairs outside apt 111 that Sara Nir photographed. They appear in the Washington Post article recently linked:

https://archive.ph/ftQTW/a0d19d141755b8de32ec3ef00c5cead0dea1b9c5.webp

Unfortunately I haven't yet found a better view of what is immediately south of column 27 that could block our view of 27-28.

 

[zebraso]

Can someone tell me this is not what it looks like. It the source of the odd green color in the tictok capture. It's just cropped and enlarge with the typical sort of image enhancement. I'm pretty sure it's not a patio table.

 

[jbourne8]

Auri, Nice find! I hadn't seen that second video yet.. looks like this one was taken from further away. And that's an interesting point about those chairs. I kind of blew it off as a green tint from the slab reflection, or maybe a green car that's smashed back there.

microwizard, The reason why there are so many different disciplines in here is actually to make it easier for the structural engineers.. it's difficult for lots of them to edit videos, work on photo imagery, hunt through and find all of the endless documents, etc. There were also a lot of questions about the security equipment in the last thread that none of them were able to answer.. which I think brought a lot of us computer guys in here. I think the reason why it's less informative now is because no new information has come out in a few weeks now. There's nothing unprofessional about reanalyzing the little data we have, come on. If you want an expert opinion, go watch the news.. that's never a good thing to search for online lol

 

[Sym P. le]

Thanks for the post. These details are not too small and are otherwise easily missed.

Perhaps some don't appreciate brainstorming. It can be tedious. The purpose of enhancing video is to assist in the evaluation, no more, no less.

 

[Demented]

I believe that's Bessie downn for the summer.

Likely a reflection off a wall. In other videos that are poorly lit, cropped to hell, condensed, and squinted at from before the collapse, similar color glows can be seen on the ground and walls. Appears to be the wall just before the hot tub.

Precision guess work based on information provided by those of questionable knowledge

 

[Demented]

Does anyone by chance know what the theoretical compressive strength of column M11.1 should have been in an ideal environment?

Precision guess work based on information provided by those of questionable knowledge

 

[Demented]

Crack, or exterior cable being run? If a crack, then this could very well explain why the penthouse does appear to be missing in the start of the collapse.

Collapse sending a shockwave down the columns until it transfers the load to the top of the M11.1 column, causing it to overweight to failure?

Edit: Original link to source where I found the image. Actual source and date unknown.

Precision guess work based on information provided by those of questionable knowledge