Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 13 44

[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
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 09
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 10
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 11
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 12


SF Charlie
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[Optical98]

sgw1009

I think what's marked in Red are the pieces affected by the demolition and the Blue are from the original collapse.

 

[Red Corona]

K13.1 would be a parking plaza column, one of the ones that survived and punched through the deck I think. But I don't think it was that shape so I'm not sure that marking means what we think it does.

Someone suggested in a previous picture round that red is what they're using to mark things of interest.

> @Nukeman This is also where I believe the initial failure began.
A slow compression failure beginning 22 hours earlier at this column may have gone unnoticed and would shift it's load to surrounding columns and fit the timeline of the first sounds of failure.

Yeah I think we had this conversation on about page 5, it seems unlikely to me that the roof work is coincidentally the day before everything fell down, and something about that caused one of the columns (I was thinking M 9.1, but actually from the way the facade falls, L failing first makes more sense) to deform and detach the beam keeping the pool deck from punching through. It's hard to see what exactly would cause that but if the concrete was as poor quality as it seems to have been then maybe it was just the roof equipment was the incremental extra load needed to push it over the edge.

 

[Optical98]

Are we to just assume the underground diesel tank(s) were unaffected by the collapse?
I'd like to see close up pictures of the basin perimeter, especially the Northern side.

 

[Nukeman948]

Are we to just assume the underground diesel tank(s) were unaffected by the collapse?

I think it is safe to assume that it got squished in the collapse, just like all the gas and diesel fuel tanks on all the cars in the parking level (except the Tesla). That means that it may (or mat not) have leaked its contents into the water that the firemen and rescuers were wading in. There was far more gas, oil, Diesel, transmission fluid and everything else leaked from all those cars than from that one generator tank.

Here's a picture for you.
All of the water that they have been pumping out of the big hole needs to be treated before it can leave the site. That big yellow box in the upper right corner of the picture is a hydraulic pump. Two small hoses go from there to drive the big sump pump behind the dude that is standing there. The black pump discharge hose goes to the blue dumpster looking thing on the left. It filters out debris and skims all the oil, diesel, and other petroleum products and discharges the cleaned up water out of its hose on the left. At that point it may be clean enough to dump into the nearest sewer so the water treatment plant can deal with it or to a tanker truck to be hauled off for further treatment.

 

[Optical98]

Nukeman948

Thank you for the picture and details on the filtering process, that was informative!

Supposedly it was a 1000 gallon tank, that's a lot of diesel fuel... but from the plans it should be under the foundation, under the ramp area - or somewhere with a manhole cover?

^^ This may be for the North Tower, the bottom right corner is too faded to tell. But I know I saw a similar layout for the South Tower.

 

[Nukeman948]

Supposedly it was a 1000 gallon tank, that's a lot of diesel fuel... but from the plans it should be under the foundation, under the ramp area - or somewhere with a manhole cover?

All of these drawings are horrible.
Yes, the North tower shows it below the sidewalk at the ramp to the garage with a manhole access. Should be plenty of room here. Google earth shows that is a lie. No manhole.

None of the drawings even hint at an elevation. Under the slab makes maintenance or replacement very difficult if not impossible.
Morabito shows the South tower Diesel tank outside of the building just a bit West of the ramp. It might just sit on top of the slab here but that would be dumb. It is on the landscaping drawings so I doubt it is below the parking level slab, therefore it must be just below the parking level ceiling (or maybe on the floor?). This would be above a couple of parking spots but just eyeballing the drawings to get some "rough" dimensions I get about 6'x13' or maybe 5'x12'. To get 1000 gallons that would require a tank 29 inches or 38 inches deep. There is just not enough headroom for a tank above these parking spaces and park cars here too. So by deduction, the only answer left is... no idea. They just lost two parking spaces and the tank got squished in any likely location.

Anyway, the 500 gallon transformer tank is shown on the parking level in the unused corner (maybe?) but it could have been pumped out before the implosion if they thought that was needed.

 

[Demented]

Installed in 1993, there was an above ground 1000gal diesel storage tank installed on a concrete slab, hidden away behind hedges. Original tank and fill port were left and not removed if I am not mistaken.

Edit: Thar she blows.

 

[Optical98]

Demented

Good find! What a terrible location, right by the garage entrance. You can see the black pipe going up the wall and into the generator/pump room too.

There was a time early on that I hadn't realized there were actually parking spaces directly beneath the perimeter of the building...it could be safe to assume that this tank ended up in the garage and yeah most likely "smushed" and carted away with the debris.

Y'all know I've been curious about the rooms directly above the ramp area...(and all combustible items not car related). My apologies for more crappy pics, hopefully you can make out what I'm pointing to. There was fire/burning there at the area directly beneath the generator room, this area is above the cars and the scorch marks are not climbing the wall, which would indicate they came from above or directly there.

Could this snip be the other side of that wall, it is marked in blue and so it was taken to the NIST area. Also curious what that orange line is in front of him.

 

[Nukeman948]

There was fire/burning there at the area directly beneath the generator room, this area is above the cars and the scorch marks are not climbing the wall, which would indicate they came from above or directly there.

The drawings show a 25 gallon day tank for the generator so there was some fuel in there.
The electrical riser diagram shows the 60hp, 170 amp fire pump had a transfer switch to use either generator power or use a feed straight from the transformer. There was a circuit breaker set at 1000 amps next to the transfer switch but the wires that come from the transformer were only rated for 225 amps. The reasoning is that you want the fire pump to be able to run no matter how bad the fire gets. In this case the transformer was not within the initial collapse so it could have continued to feed power to that room. If damaged wires were shorted with only the impedance of the circuit to limit current until the wires melted or the primary fuses blew, you could get a little bit of scorching in there and maybe ignite a squished day tank.
Now the markings on the concrete you circled look like they could be electrical flash marks on the left side, but on the right side they look more like stains from a day tank that has been leaking fuel for years.

The wires w/red stripes are 26kv that fed the transformer, and one of the other sets of wires likely fed the transfer switch. One set to feed a house panel in that room too. I'm surprised these are PVC conduits and not encased in concrete. (on closer look there may have been some type of fire proofing over them)

 

[Demented]

It's in one of the Morabito documents somewhere, but a picture of the rusted day tank does exist.

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

 

[AutisticBez]

I am thinking that under that 37 column, the stresses are different. Like the pool itself is strongly connected to the foundation. So as the pool deck is failing, the concrete slab wants to fall, but its connections near to the pool are ripping apart due to the solid connection with the pool to foundation.

Maybe there are some cold joints to the pool? Because a large pool structure might be poured first before the actual pool deck? The order that things are poured in is vital in determining where a cold joint would be.

You would pour a pools bottom right? Then come up the walls of the pool? Then at the end you are doing the pool deck, then the topping slab?

Either way, column 37 seems to be very close to the pool like the pool deck cannot rely on its connection with the pool structure? One parking space between them?

I am thinking the weak spot in the pool deck is somewhere between pool and 37 column?

As for the topping, it didn't puncture at 37, but the rest of the slab did. Whether the rebar was strong enough is a different question. I will bet that there are few columns that can withstand a progressive collapse of pool deck.

Most of the rebar might have been fine under normal circumstances, but in hindsight of a progressive collapse, not.

The answer? Many parking structures have failed from airborne sea salt corrosion. This is not anything new. Take a look at new parking structures with those gigantic round columns. Tiny columns on parking garages are a bad idea.

 

[Optical98]

Nukeman

Thank you, that was a very in depth post, Electrical issues are pretty much outside my wheelhouse, but I think I understand.

That area being right up against the eastern shear wall... do you think that could have attributed to the failure of it. I mean it was def undersized...may not have been able to hold regardless, but I have wondered why it failed so quickly.

 

[Optical98]

I was looking at this video again, the lights are on in that unit on the 2nd floor, that's Unit 202 right?
Unit 202 was supposedly empty. Actually 201, 202 and 203 were empty.

MaudSTL, do you have any further info on those units?

 

[Nukeman948]

Electrical issues are pretty much outside my wheelhouse, but I think I understand.
That area being right up against the eastern shear wall... do you think that could have attributed to the failure of it.

Electrical has been my life. Structural, not so much.

We have all watched that first security cam video hundreds of times. Watch it again but concentrate on the top edge of the East portion that fell last. Just as the center portion hit the ground the top of the East portion suddenly moved East about 5 feet very fast and twisted. Think about all those columns cracking as that happened and the rebar stretching like a rubber-band. And then it started moving like a pendulum to the West very slowly, but never stopping until its momentum and weight overcame those fractured columns.
If we believe this building was so compromised by design errors, construction flaws, and neglected or shoddy maintenance to the point the first failure happened spontaneously, then it wouldn't matter if the generator room was against the shear wall or not. It was a miracle the East side stayed up so long.

 

[MaudSTL]

MaudSTL, do you have any further info on those units?

I don’t track units, but I did add this Miami Herald piece to the timeline data tab because it has a good floor by floor graphic telling which units were and were not occupied.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article253088463.html

 

[Js5180]

Optical98 - Is the gate open in that picture?

 

[Optical98]

MaudSTL

Thank you, that does verify those units were supposed to be empty, however there are lights on in Unit 202 right before the collapse. I'm going to have to assume the MDPD is aware of this.

Demented

Where were you finding Unit Permits for renovations? I wonder if Sara Nir was hearing Work being done that evening?

Js5180

No, the gate is not open, that pic is the beginning of a tiktok video that was being made 7 minutes before the collapse.

 

[Nukeman948]

...those units were supposed to be empty, however there are lights on in Unit 202 right before the collapse. I'm going to have to assume the MDPD is aware of this.

There could be a couple very innocent reasons for that light being on:

1. A real estate agent was showing that unit in the daytime and didn't realize a light got left on.

2. The client that was looking at the unit was named Tom Bodett.

C. A young, handsome Youtube videographer, with a gravely voice, desperate for a story to make himself rich and famous, decided to supplement his meager income by selling used Diesel fuel on the black market. With the help of an underpaid security guard, he broke into the condo above the generator room and began drilling through the floor, 22 hours before the collapse, directly above the day tank. Realizing he couldn't siphon up hill he decided to drill back down so he could siphon directly to his getaway car parked carelessly by column 37. Unfortunately, with a whirring drilling sound, he drilled into the top of the transfer switch hitting the unfused wires and causing him to jump back and hit his head on the shear wall with enough force to shake the building, knocking the tar kettle off the roof which then crashed through the pool deck. Using Youtube's algorithms to understand his mistake he tried to back the drill out but this caused a huge electrical explosion that reflected off the shear wall and focused its energy on the opposite side of the building starting the main collapse. The only way this evil doer could have escaped is to dress up as an elderly lady and be escorted out by Shamoka herself. I just hope that those mean "Youtube Pirates" give me all the credit I deserve for this "Exclusive" story.

 

[Demented]

@Optical98
Surfside's file release and FOIA requests.

Night work did happen often at CTS, There were 0 requests or notices for night work that night.

That rabbit hole is empty.

 

[Optical98]

Unit 202 had just been purchased April 2020. I see no record of it being put back on the market
It's a really nice unit, however the kitchen needed a huge update.

https://www.redfin.com/FL/Surfside/8777-Collins-Ave-33154/unit-202/home/42907565

Demented,

We both know there was often WWOP done there. Rabbit Hole open.

Nukeman,

Could be many explanations... but it should be looked into regardless as the site is a CRIME SCENE?

Update: The family lives in NJ, they own 202 and use it as a vacation home. They had actually vacationed in Surfside in April, there are pics on their IG of their little boy standing on that balcony and saying how lucky they were.