Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 09 139

[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
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 05
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 06
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 07
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 08

SF Charlie
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[CE3527]

I'm here due to need for answers on something that just isn't supposed to happen. Conventional "wisdom" has been that concrete fails slowly, shows distress, cracking, deflection, etc. before catastrophic failure. I've been checking back to see if new evidence drops.
The slow trickle of evidence is somewhat frustrating. I'm feeling like the "crime scene" declaration was more about keeping evidence confidential and safe from FOIA.

 

[Demented]

Has it been established where the water is coming in by the way? I know there was a crack in the wall it appears on the sidewalk nearest the storm drain and fire hydrant on Collins. The streams got shut down before we ever got to see. Someone mentioned threads ago about issues with the old infrastructure allowing tide waters from the west to back-flow into the storm drains. One possibility that may exist is water was getting between the outer support wall and steel cribbing, leading to unknown concrete deterioration. There is a large chunk of that wall that was caved in with the upper deck, under the portion that did not collapse. Others have speculated that the deck collapse initiated along that wall, near that location. Cracks in the wall and water intrusion here from the storm drains are a pretty big thumbs up to that theory.

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

 

[Optical98]

zebraso

Can't say on the North and East towers, they're still standing last I looked.

 

[Demented]

@CE3527
The crime scene status feels more like it's because the Town of Surfside's involvement. Miami-Dade has been cooperative. Surfside has not.

Within 12H it was very likely known who was on the roof the entire week thanks to employee work logs and that work was being done prior to permits being issued and the inspector going on record right away saying he was there and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Red flag right away, crime scene.

 

[zebraso]

Will we find out the chloride content on average is higher than samples from the east tower? Or will we find them out generally?

 

[Optical98]

CE3527,

I believe new evidence will dribble out, we can only speculate on any of this atm. Honestly if a crime was committed, surely they already have the evidence they need. They won't release that info until they have someone in custody tho.

If there were an accidental trigger, that info might get released earlier.

The longest hold will be on trying to prove the other 3 headed monster...HOA Neglect, Slow permitting process or wwop, or Morobito.

 

[Jedidad]

@MaudeSTL: For line 6 in your spreadsheet the time should be ~11:30PM according to that article you referenced in line 4. FYI.

So I was reading the witness statements in the spreadsheet and I was reminded of something that struck me as odd the first time I read about Eric Zion's account of his actions that night. Now I'm not implying there's anything nefarious about any of this, just that it's odd.

Here's his account in the article:

https://www.wlrn.org/news/2021-06-2...apse-in-surfside-leaves-one-dead-many-injured

Eric Zion and his wife return to the condo from a trip and find their power off. They decide to get a hotel "just for the night". After dropping off his wife (and luggage I assume) at the hotel he returns to the condo and goes "upstairs to get my scooter". (btw, the spreadsheet says it was an electric scooter but that's not mentioned in the article. Perhaps it is somewhere else. Surely they don't allow gasoline vehicles in condo units.)

Why did he want his scooter? He's just going to have to go back to the condo to retrieve the car the next morning to check out of the hotel. Surely he wasn't planning on hauling his wife and luggage back on the scooter.

If he just loves riding his scooter why didn't he just follow his wife to the hotel, her in the car and him on the scooter?

Like I said, it's just odd to me.

Maybe the media is not accurately reporting what he said.

 

[Demented]

@Jedidad. They do but they don't. My race bike is sitting in front of my bed. I have the OK from management, even on bringing a second one in soon. Florida eh. So yeah, a scooter inside is possible.

Edit: Tank is empty on mine don't worry.
Edit 2: Having done similar stuff myself, as no AC in the summer sucks, you can leave your car parked home safe and bring your scooter (or bike) into a hotel room. They fit inside standard elevators and residential doorways with 0 issue. Plus riding at night in Florida in the summer is quite nice, especially with an ocean breeze. The stagnant humid air inside with no ceiling fans and no AC, yeah even a $40 roach motel room with a window knocker is worth it.

 

[zebraso]

Florida eh. So yeah, a scooter inside is possible.

An O2 tank would complete the picture.

 

[Optical98]

Jedidad

"Maybe the media is not accurately reporting what he said."

That's why they're Not "witness statements"

sox..

 

[MaudSTL]

For line 6 in your spreadsheet the time should be ~11:30PM according to that article you referenced in line 4. FYI.

Thanks for finding that…will correct.

We had a big discussion about that odd behavior here, with some making accusations based on their biases. In my research, I found a questionable but possible answer to the one-night stay at the hotel. His wife is supposedly pregnant, and they had just come in from out of town. As for the scooter, according to locals, the cost of hotel parking is very high in that area. So, to save money, he threw their car down in the free garage and scootered back to the hotel.

>>>>>Edit: That was weird. Two of the times were oddly changed from what I had originally published. I hope that doesn't happen again. Thank you for finding it, @Jedidad.

Addendum: Just to clarify the purpose of this exercise...this timeline is intended to help provide a general sequence of events against which to check failure theories. This building didn't fail in some random sequence. The spreadsheet simply organizes survivor descriptions that have come from reasonably credible sources. How the survivors have been quoted is generally good enough for this purpose. This will help engineers and attorneys prepare to interview them.

 

[BKNJ]

Why did he want his scooter? He's just going to have to go back to the condo to retrieve the car the next morning to check out of the hotel. Surely he wasn't planning on hauling his wife and luggage back on the scooter.

Playing devil's advocate, I would say that his car probably has some kind of comprehensive coverage, which the scooter doesn't. But that would only apply if something nefarious was going on... which I am NOT implying.

I know I've done some illogical things when I was tired, so I'd be chalking it up to that.

That said, I'd really like to know more about WHY his electric was out. Not living in a third world country, having no electric at the breaker box, assuming my bill was paid up, would have me talking to a lot of people (electric company, security, condo employee) late at night... I'd consider no electric to be something of an emergency. It just seems really odd that unit 508 (IIRC) would suffer an outage hour ahead of the collapse when the lights were on in the rest of the building until seconds before.

BKNJ

 

[spsalso]

Why unit 508 might have lost power:

With all those AC compressors stacked on the roof, I will assume that each unit supplies its own power to its own compressors, up there.

If the guys working on the roof managed to wang (sophisticated electrical terminology) 508's compressor bad enough, there could've been a short. NORMALLY, that will trip the breaker for the compressor. But it doesn't have be that way. It COULD have tripped the unit's main breaker instead.

And then 508 would have no power.


spsalso

 

[Spartan5]

Maybe all the intensive hammer drilling that so shook the entire building all the way down to the foundation also wiggled a few of the light bulbs loose and they really had power after all. It only seemed like they didn’t.

That’s probably the best explanation.

 

[zebraso]

Playing devil's advocate, I would say that his car probably has some kind of comprehensive coverage, which the scooter doesn't.

No doubt police consider every angle, if only to find someone to blame it on. Well they have a purpose to fulfill. And, I've seen how NIS really operates. But since you mention this, you might also consider that his Tesla Oscillator could also have tripped the circuit breaker while he was fine tuning it and he had to find another place to plug it in. Ok, one of these two theories is crazy, but somehow they fit together. Telsa claimed he could knock down a mid rise with his oscillator btw or worse. I apologize for this post.

 

[Spartan5]

There are multiple reports of the initial collapse beginning at the roof:
111 said noises came from roof first
611 said cracking came from ceiling downwards
711 ring camera appears failure from above first in doorway area
904 said noises came from roof and they fell floor by floor to the 3rd floor
Finally, those two blue flashes of light in the x10 stack on the security camera footage to me look like electrical, as if something is falling through the x10 stack cutting the electrical wires from inside (maybe the HVAC unit?)

Repeating things don’t add to their validity. Particularly when you have to contort them to fit your perspective.

111 said nothing about the roof.

611 saw cracking in the seconds before the building collapsed. This was several minutes after all of the ground level failures had occurred. The building was mortally wounded at that point. And the loads were desperately trying to any path they could to take them. The cracks tell us nothing more than that the building was dying; and quickly.

Same for 711. You’re pointing at Richard Petty barrel rolling down the backstretch and shouting “Look at that dent in the fender there!!!”

904 said noises came from the roof. AS THE WHOLE BUILDING COLLAPSED AROUND THEM! Did they say they heard the roof collapsed several minutes before the rest of the building but decided to just wait and see what was going to happen? I missed that part.

Now we have AC units cutting through the middle of the stack as the building collapses? How does that even fit with your previous theory that things falling off the failed roof caused the ground slab to fail several minutes before the whole thing came down?

I’ll be honest. When you first started posting this stuff I thought you were just doing it to have one over on us. For whatever reason, I don’t know. Then you posted that PowerPoint and I realized it was much deeper than that.

 

[BKNJ]

If the guys working on the roof managed to wang (sophisticated electrical terminology) 508's compressor bad enough, there could've been a short. NORMALLY, that will trip the breaker for the compressor. But it doesn't have be that way. It COULD have tripped the unit's main breaker instead.

I'm trying to give the residents of 508 the benefit of the doubt that they checked the main breaker... and that they don't need an electrician to reset a breaker... but, granted, I may be giving them too much credit.

I look at it this way... if the electric stops at my breaker, it's my problem, otherwise it someone else's and they better get it back on ASAP or have a damn good reason it's off (and I have to get a hotel). Again, assuming the bill was paid. OTOH, the A/C is my problem... and I'll admit that if I was in Florida in summer and the A/C broke (well, beyond my ability to fix it), I'd be booking an air conditioned hotel real quick.

BKNJ

 

[Optical98]

There were some conflicting theories on whether this was a planter box or not, potato cam but clear enough to verify it is not the planter.

Link

 

[zebraso]

whether this was a planter box or not

Just above and right of the left arrow? Yes that is where a planter was in plans and photos. It has moved away from the wall a bit.

 

[Auri]

@spsalso got me thinking:

I'm more inclined to believe the power was out than Eric Zion was making this all up for insurance or whatever. The primary reason was that Eric & wife were renting. Additionally, it seems other Zions had rented the place and seemed to be on good terms with the landlord, a FL attorney. It's possible an intermediary did the unit management and failed to pay the bills. I'd simply ask the electric company who was on the account and whether it was shut off.

Other than the electricity being out, Eric Zion's actions were unsuspicious to me. It's how I would react in June in FL. If you returned from your trip to find your AC, fridge, and phone chargers all out at 10:30pm and the landlord is a family friend, what would you do?