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]

When you're interested in buying a home, you can have a home inspection done. They are very thorough, of the issues found - the owner has to make repairs or offer allowances in the asking price.

These home inspectors may do something of the same in condos, but how qualified are they to find some of these type of issues? This has to be expanded upon. They also need to research previous building inspections and be allowed to access reserve fund status etc.

If the number of state, county or township inspections of these buildings is increased or more frequent (hopefully), and maintenance & repairs are not being kept up to par, this evaluation needs to be put on record at the tax assessment office.

Devaluation in public records would get everyone's attention.

Hope this makes sense...still on my 1st cuppa joe this fine morning o/

 

[Optical98]

Hundreds of items found at the Surfside collapse site. Police may not return them all.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article254072373.html

 

[MaudSTL]

There are two separate things going on with the CTS collapse…1. a criminal investigation by police and 2. a forensic investigation of the building collapse. The issue here is a logical gap related to data access, not a conspiracy, for goodness’ sake!

If the police are conducting a criminal investigation, then they should bar all entities from access to the site and material until after they have finished their criminal investigation. Instead, Miami-Dade PD is apparently continuing to conduct its criminal investigation, and at the same time picking and choosing who gets access to data…so far it’s Yes to NIST and No to the Town of Surfside.

What is unprecedented in this situation is Miami-Dade’s inconsistent application of the rules of crime scene access. This unusual inconsistency raises the question of what Miami-Dade hopes to gain by obstructing the Town of Surfside from conducting its own investigation.

In the US there is no precedent for limiting forensic investigations after a building collapse…any public or private entity with an interest in understanding what happened and the means to engage a forensic engineer does so. The WTC collapse, for example, was investigated by multiple entities. Professional engineers seem to know how to work without stepping on each others’ toes…there is no record of issues between the various investigatory entities at the WTC.

I have so far not found a rule or law that prevents the Town of Surfside, Miami-Dade County/PD, the CTS Condo Board, etc. from engaging their own forensic engineers in an investigation. NIST is there because Congress realized after 9/11/2001 that there was no federal agency tasked with doing this kind of work…so they passed legislation designating NIST to do so with the ultimate objective being increased construction safety. But that doesn’t make NIST the official lead investigator if more than one investigation has been undertaken.

 

[Spartan5]

The issue here is a logical gap related to data access, not a conspiracy, for goodness’ sake!

I must have misread this.

Kilsheimer has been sidelined in a manner that makes Miami-Dade appear to be absolutely corrupt. Nobody from the six conglomerates that own 90% of US media is trying to figure out what Miami-Dade is trying to hide.

As for conflicts, this is what he wants to do:

We need to look at the under-slab drainage if there is one. We need to expose the pile caps, check the pile caps, the reinforcing of the pile caps. Then we have to shoot what amounts to sound waves down the piles and the outside of the piles to check the soil and the rock to see what is existing below the rock.

Then we need to take cores down the piles to see the condition of the piles themselves. That is a two-month process, pretty much, to do it thoroughly. Then you have to dewater the site while you are doing it because at high tide water comes in and it rains here all the time.

I ask again, what would he be doing that NIST isn’t?

It doesn’t seem far-fetched to me, the need for there to be controlled access to the site while NIST completes their investigation. And that if NIST wanted Kilsheimer there. He would be there.

 

[dik]

Funny that they hauled away evidence during a police investigation... you'd think they would get their stories correct.

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

-Dik

 

[Spartan5]

Funny that they hauled away evidence during a police investigation... you'd think they would get their stories correct.

I know, right?

Round my parts, any time there’s a fatal car accident they leave the scattered remains of vehicles sitting where they stopped for months.

 

[SFCharlie]

IF NIST is like NTSB then entities can become parties to the investigation, if they abide by the rules of no press involvement till the NIST investigation is over. Surfside could and should be a party to the structural investigation, as they are providing records of the history of the regulation and inspection of the construction and modifications to the building. They are, we believe being very transparent.

edit(of course, Kilsheimer would have to keep quiet.)

 

[MaudSTL]

I must have misread this.

It seems so. Where I’m from, a conspiracy requires multiple parties. Miami-Dade, which is located in a part of Florida known historically for corruption, is a single party that is acting like it has something to hide. I am curious to understand why they are acting that way, instead of working to project an image of honesty and transparency as the Town of Surfside has been attempting, at least up until this re-zoning fiasco, to do. Maybe Miami-Dade simply needs a better PR crisis management team.

…what would he be doing that NIST isn’t?

What does that matter? The point is that historically corrupt Miami-Dade is providing selective access to what their PD has flimsily designated a crime scene, and by doing so has set the County up for a Town of Surfside lawsuit to force access. Whatever the County’s objective, it seems so important to them that not only are they willing to appear to be corrupt and risk a lawsuit but also they have allowed their PD to all intents and purposes destroy their own crime scene. If forensic engineers had been in charge of that site, they wouldn't have allowed Miami-Dade to decontextualize the debris by rushing to scrape the site bare.

Two and a half months later, I’d like to know the status of the criminal investigation that requires the site and debris as evidence. When will the criminal investigation be completed, the crime scene tape removed, and a grand jury convened?

 

[Demented]

How best could they have preserved the crime scene without destruction of it and continue the search and rescue/recovery effort?

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

 

[SFCharlie]

...just so you know I didn't pull the idea of the slab drop beam twistting out of my, aah "hat"...

The precise mechanics of that force could have taken several forms...
Or the collapsing deck could have acted like a wrench and twisted the drop beam to the point of “mutual destruction of both the beams and columns at those connection points,” said Joshua Porter of Consult Engineering in Punta Gorda, Fla.

How a collapsed pool deck could have caused a Florida condo building to fall

Joshua Porter (BuildingIntegrity) ( I didn't find the particular video where he say this)

SF Charlie
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[Spartan5]

Where I’m from, a conspiracy requires multiple parties. Miami-Dade, which is located in a part of Florida known historically for corruption, is a single party that is acting like it has something to hide.

I must have misread this:

Kilsheimer has been sidelined in a manner that makes Miami-Dade appear to be absolutely corrupt. Nobody from the six conglomerates that own 90% of US media is trying to figure out what Miami-Dade is trying to hide.

Whatever the County’s objective, it seems so important to them that not only are they willing to appear to be corrupt and risk a lawsuit but also they have allowed their PD to all intents and purposes destroy their own crime scene. If forensic engineers had been in charge of that site, they wouldn't have allowed Miami-Dade to decontextualize the debris by rushing to scrape the site bare.

You sound entirely ignorant of the extensive amount of data NIST collected during that process, which they appeared to have controlled. Or you are intentionally ignoring it to shore up this conspiracy of yours.

NIST is there. Identifying, tagging, documenting, and collecting all that they need. In plain sight. You have seen this, right? Is it not on a spreadsheet somewhere?

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/ne...investigation-champlain-towers-south-collapse

NIST staff members are coordinating and leading remote sensing efforts to determine where pieces of evidence were located in the debris pile. They are supported by experts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Florida State University, the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

“ If forensic engineers had been in charge of that site…”

IF??? You act like NIST is hanging out at the landfill trying to capture select bits from the trucks before dumped. That NIST article is the EXACT opposite of what you’ve described, a la “they have allowed their PD to all intents and purposes destroy their own crime scene.” Come off it already.

Has NIST logged any complaints about the county’s handling of the site and destruction of evidence? They must be part of the conspiracy too. Along with the six conglomerates that own 90% of US media.

 

[SFCharlie]

How best could they have preserved the crime scene without destruction of it and continue the search and rescue/recovery effort?

Good question (I believe the search and rescue people knew that there were no survivors at the point they demolished the west wing.) The surprise urgency of the demolition is "intriguing?". Residents of the west wing thought they had 2 or 3 weeks to act, and then CTS was coming down "tomorrow". I'm not clear what was gained by the "hasty" action. (maybe the hurricane would have destabilized the building, making it dangerous to demolish?) Anyway, I'm in no position to second guess the recovery effort.

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[SFCharlie]

...the extensive amount of data NIST collected during that process, which they appeared to have controlled.

Somehow, all the video they have released is of NIST wandering around closely examining columns that have be remove by excavators after cleaning the site. They make clear in the sound bites they released, that the search and rescue was in control of the site and that they worked around them, but I never saw them in video anywhere but outside the perimeter.

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[SFCharlie]

conspiracy Police paid by politicians reelected with donations from developers, contractors, building supply suppliers, realtors, etc. and paid their salaries out of property taxes collected.

edit ...even the governor stepped in to control the narrative from day one, how different than the FIU bridge press conferences

 

[Demented]

Good question (I believe the search and rescue people knew that there were no survivors at the point they demolished the west wing.) The surprise urgency of the demolition is "intriguing?". Residents of the west wing thought they had 2 or 3 weeks to act, and then CTS was coming down "tomorrow". I'm not clear what was gained by the "hasty" action. (maybe the hurricane would have destabilized the building, making it dangerous to demolish?) Anyway, I'm in no position to second guess the recovery effort.

The remaining structure was unstable and swaying already without tropical storm force winds. There were fears that higher winds, and even more rain, could have toppled the remaining structure onto the existing rubble pile, making any efforts even more difficult in retrieving souls/bodies. Thankfully the storm missed.

Edit:
As corrupt as I want to scream Miami-Dade is, that's probably more going to lean on the side of it just simply being prime real estate.
A town official and the engineering firm behind the renovation work were on the property the day before the collapse in the early AM hours. Nothing was reported to have been out of the ordinary, despite it being fact that the work was completed before the permit was granted. Also with the quickly discovered history of certain building officials, the town itself kinda got put under the search light. Kilsheimer might not like it, but there's a good chance he's just dealing with a conflict of interest due to who hired him being under investigation. I'm all for crazy conspiracies but I just don't think things are being covered up by Miami-Dade.

 

[SFCharlie]

making any efforts even more difficult in retrieving souls/bodies. Thankfully the storm missed.

Yes
edit

that's probably more going to lean on the side of it just simply being prime real estate.

Yes again

 

[dik]

I'm not into conspiracies... just corrupt/shady government... fact, not conspiracy.

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

-Dik

 

[Seppe]

Conspiracy. Corruption.

Potayto. Potahto.

I'm simply saying that, with regards to some of the discourse on this thread, the sensationalism is shape-shifting.

Originally it was talk of rolls of tar paper on the roof being the smoking gun for pool deck collapse. And now that folks seem to have exhausted their Rube Goldberg-like imaginations, the conversation has morphed into evidence tampering and jurisdictional scheming.

It's more entertainment than it is engineering at this point.

 

[Optical98]

The word Conspiracy has been used on this forum 465 times.
The word Corruption has been used on this forum 426 times.

These words are thrown around to gaslight and discourage open discourse and a free exchange of ideas. I haven't seen any sensationalism. And any serious investigation will put all possibilities on the table and vet each one.

We can't pretend that money and politics could not play a roll here, in what happened, who gets access and what gets told to the public.

98 lives were lost 3 months ago, many more lives permanently turned upside down..
They deserve better than the juvenile behavior and mockery that keeps coming from the same people on here.
No one on here knows what exactly happened nor has anyone license to try and shutdown open and honest inquiry on this thread.

 

[AusG]

What we are suffering from is a lack of new material to work on. There are no published tables and formulae for the motivations and trustworthiness of the agencies at work, so personal perceptions take over, in which we all ... draw different lines and arrows on our PowerPoint... In short, let's wait until something new turns up with a degree of faith in our ability to assess it when it does.