Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 17 14

[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
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 13
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 14
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 15
Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse, Part 16


SF Charlie
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[Jeff Ostroff]

Yes and I also wonder why when the police first arrived we knew the strobes were on for the fire alarm at least on the back deck now I don't know if those came on after the comma but why there was still no audible if the light was on. And when central alarm called were they reporting the fact that the security guard had triggered the alarm, or was it the loss of pressure from the pool deck crashing through the pipes and triggering the low pressure alarm which I have heard is sometimes not an audible alarm just so many questions around all of this whole alarm issue.

 

[Jeff Ostroff]

SF Charlie you should be done kindling the book by now, did it have anything interesting?

 

[SFCharlie]

I sprung the $10 for the print edition. Either way, Amazon sets it up so it arrives on the release date, Jun 28.

SF Charlie
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[Nukeman948]

...it makes me wonder if the deck collapsed just before 1:15…maybe just before 1:14:39.

I have previously hinted that adjustments like this to the timeline are likely to happen, but I didn't see much reason to speculate at the time without more evidence. I have been hoping that the investigators will release information from the EPROM (erasable programmable read only memory) that they would have removed from the fire alarm panel.

What the EPROM does is it logs and stores information for all functions and conditions of the fire alarm control panel. They will be able to determine the exact time, type and sequence of the alarm inputs and outputs and have an understanding of everything it did before and after the collapse until the batteries failed or the wiring was damaged.

If workmen ever disconnected or disabled power or alarm input devices like smoke detectors or flow switches, or output notification devices like the modem that called the alarm monitoring company or horn/strobe devices, those things will be logged too. Workmen could prevent setting off false alarms but how they do it will be recorded and they will know if the alarm system was restored to a functioning condition when they were done.

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[MaudSTL]

…adjustments like this to the timeline are likely to happen…

Agreed. This is why I continue to monitor all publicly available info, and also why I get frustrated with the Miami Herald for muddying the waters with bad data. It would certainly be helpful to see that log and find out more about the rules that were used (or were supposed to be used) to program that system.

I have to wonder if, after testing the emergency speakers in the units several months before the collapse, someone may have left the voice evacuation announcement system in test mode, which could account for the absence of audible evacuation announcements. Another question is whether the fire alarm pull switch in the lobby, which had acted up in 2020, had been properly repaired. We do not know if it was pulled after the deck collapsed.

The log could answer these questions and much more, of course. According to the Miami Herald, two survivors from the standing part of the building heard evacuation commands on the speaker within their units but not in the hallways: Alfredo Lopez (605) after 1:22 AM and Daniela Silva (408) closer to 1:30 AM. I don’t know if a rolling evacuation announcement (if that’s what these times imply) is normal design to allow higher floors to start evacuating sooner than lower floors. I haven’t included post-collapse observations in the Witness Statement Timeline spreadsheet, but I do monitor them.

 

[Nukeman948]

1. "muddying the waters with bad data"
2. "someone may have left the voice evacuation announcement system in test mode"
3. "two survivors from the standing part of the building heard evacuation commands on the speaker within their units but not in the hallways"

1. I sure understand the frustration with bad data. Myself and others explained why sprinkler pressure is not used to trigger a fire alarm but some people cling to their own beliefs.
2. Leaving any switch in "test mode" would activate a "system trouble" light on the annunciator panel and a logged event in the EPROM. It can't be ruled out but it's not likely and the investigators would know the answer.
3. Adding new speakers for each unit would require a lot of work pulling new wiring circuits and new audio amplifiers. Speculating here but, It would be easier if they used wireless speakers (using WIFI) for the new unit speakers. The wireless ones may have still worked even if the wires were damaged for the ones in the hallways.

I have never heard of a rolling evacuation being used but normally an alarm reported in one zone (one floor for CTS) would only call for an evacuation for that zone. An alarm in the basement level would only activate speaker/strobes in the basement level. If an alarm is later received for another zone/floor, the evacuation announcement for the new zone would also come later. The code when this was built didn't require speaker/strobes on the parking garage level except by the stairs and elevator because this level was considered outside of the occupied building for this type of construction. (this part of the code has been changed to require them now and that is why they were being added for the 40 year upgrades.) General practice is to evacuate the whole building if an alarm is not acknowledged at the panel within 10 minutes.

Do you know if the evacuation message was pre-recorded or was someone using the microphone?

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[MaudSTL]

Do you know if the evacuation message was pre-recorded or was someone using the microphone?

Daniela Silva (408) said she was awakened at about 1:30 by the evacuation announcement, and that it was a very loud female voice. That would seem to imply that it was a recording, but the Miami Herald article where I read this did not specify this.

>>>>>Edit: Also, per the body cam video timestamps on the Witness Statement Timeline…Shamoka Furman was assisting Ileana Monteagudo out of the collapsed garage by 1:26 AM, and presented herself to assist the police on the street by 1:37 AM. She could not possibly have issued the evacuation commands, and she is the only person who could have used the system.​

Speculating here but, It would be easier if they used wireless speakers (using WIFI) for the new unit speakers

I wonder about this too. Considering that they only paid about $100k for this alarm system, the use of wifi would certainly contain costs. I wonder if code allows that, though. And wouldn’t the speakers still need power, meaning that they’d have to fish wires to them anyway?

>>>>Edit: Also…it may be that it was an existing wired communication system that was upgraded to new speakers and transmitters. In other words, they may have been able to leverage existing wiring.

 

[Nukeman948]

...the use of wifi would certainly contain costs. I wonder if code allows that, though.

Code compliant wireless fire alarm components have been around for a few years now for initiating devices. After checking a few of my sources it appears that wireless speakers and strobes are not approved yet.

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[Jeff Ostroff]

The speakers in the individual units were working, as Champlain Towers completed a successful test of those speakers on June 8, just 2 weeks before the collapse.

 

[MaudSTL]

Here’s a bombshell of an article from Feb. 21,2022: Life-Safety Lessons Learned From the Miami Condo Collapse, published in Security Sales & Integration, an industry publication.

The author, a forensic alarm specialist, obviously has the alarm system log. However, he doesn’t reveal exact times for specific records. The following helps to explain why Securitas kicked in over half of the billion dollar settlement. Here are some highlights I saw…you may find others when you read it.

[ol 1]
[li]System Features. “Champlain Towers had contracted with an alarm contractor that replaced the existing building fire alarm system with a new voice evacuation fire alarm system. Among other things, it included common-area smoke detectors, manual pull stations, voice evacuation speakers inside each of the apartments and in the common areas throughout the premises, and a remote alarm annunciator located in proximity to the 24-hour guard station in the lobby.”[/li]
[li]System was partly or wholly downnot functioning as designed. “Preliminary forensic examination of the central station’s account history report reveals that prior to the building collapse, the fire alarm system was in trouble, and a supervisory condition existed. The underpinnings of what part(s) of the fire alarm system was not functioning correctly and why it had not been restored to a functional mode through performing service on the system is continuing forensically.” Which parts were downhad issues? How long was it downnot functioning properly? Was CTS notified their alarm system was downhad issues? Was the local Authority Having Jurisdiction notified that this building’s alarm system was downnot functioning properly?[/li]
[li]Lobby pull station was activated. “It appears that a manual fire alarm pull station in the lobby of the building was activated before the collapse.” Based on the Witness Statement Timeline, I think this is likely to have happened sometime between the deck collapse at ~1:15 AM and Central Alarm’s 911 call at 1:16:39 AM. It is my opinion that Shamoka is most likely to have pulled it, even though she has never stated this in interviews. Sara Nir, if she had pulled it, would have said so, as she many times stated that she told the security guard to pull it and never stated that she pulled it herself. Would this have triggered the Central Alarm 911 call? Assuming it worked, should it have triggered lobby level strobes and announcements, or all-building strobes and announcements? [/li]
[li]Manual calls to residents. “… the guard decided to try and call each of the 129 apartments to tell them to get out of the building.” Based on the timestamps of the series of four 911 calls I believe were made by Shamoka Furman, I think she started making those calls to residents after 1:17:49 AM. This means that there were only four minutes left to notify residents to evacuate before the building collapsed, not seven to 19 minutes as the author suggests.[/li]
[li]Training gap? “Moreover, a determination has not yet been made as to if the security guard who was stationed in the lobby in the early morning hours before the partial building collapse was trained in how to use the system’s onboard all-call voice evacuation feature that would have been heard inside each of the condominium units at Champlain Towers had it been utilized.” Why would Shamoka start manually calling residents if she had been trained on how to use the all-call voice evacuation system, assuming it was working? I have not found any statements from Shamoka that she tried to use this system feature and it did not work.[/li]
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I plan to update the Witness Statement Timeline with the activation of the pull station. It already has phone calls with residents, but it is probably in the wrong place, so I will need to fix that.

 

[zebraso]

I can't really see a supervisory condition being equated to "system is down". That would more likely be attributed to a "trouble" status. I guess it begs the question as to how much disfunction can exist before it is considered a problem needing immediate attention. I'm sure the supervisory condition event status is configurable also. It's hard to believe that the supervisor status is presented without more information about what caused it. Wouldn't that data also be logged? Or was it up to the management to study the problem and figure it out? Then of course the question is how long was this status logged before the collapse.

 

[MaudSTL]

I think the author is keeping his cards close to his vest. I guess we’ll have to wait to get more info.

>>>>>Edit: I made some edits on the original post to reflect your comments.

 

[zebraso]

That's fine. I did not question your interpretation, because I can believe it was presented that way or at least left it that far open to interpretation. I should have read the article. "Part or wholly down" does not exclude any possibility, given the terms not being well defined. I seriously doubt they are that well defined anyway. The only thing I get out of it is that the term supervisory refers to the system's role in monitoring the various elements to maintain full function and that a supervisory alert is one that does not rise to the level of "trouble". It seems quite ambiguous to me and they probably overlap as in all trouble is supervisory but not all supervisory are trouble. I would bet that is how it is and it's arbitrary to the whims of the programmer. So then we need the documentation.

 

[Jeff Ostroff]

I too found the article yesterday while searching for CTS fire panel info, trying to get a model # for the equipment they had there.

Are you aware that the CTS building manager in 2017 had written to the town of surfside to say they were unhappy with the performance of the company that installed their fire panel in 2017, and wanted to talk to officials in the building department about it.

Last I saw they had a meeting scheduled in Jan, 2018 but never saw what it was about.

 

[Jeff Ostroff]

 

[MaudSTL]

Yes, this letter was mentioned in the Miami Herald piece linked to previously. It also mentions that the lobby pull switch had a fault in 2020, and woke everybody up in the middle of the night. I guess that could answer the question of whether that switch controlled the lobby level or the entire building.

 

[FJBnomics]

From:

https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Resea...Posts/2021/03/03/A-Guide-to-Fire-Alarm-Basics

Supervisory – A supervisory condition means there is an issue with a system, process, or equipment that is monitored by the fire alarm control unit (see supervision section). An example of this would be a sprinkler system valve being closed, this would show up as a supervisory signal on the control unit. Here is a blog discussing some of the places you may find a fire alarm control unit.

 

[MaudSTL]

I have an alarm question. Let’s assume there’s a properly designed alarm system in a 13 story residential building. I presume the system is intended to maintain building security and to keep residents safe in the event of a fire. How would we expect that properly designed and installed system to behave when the building collapses instead of catching fire or being broken into? I guess I am asking what normal system behavior would be.

 

[BraunEHC]

According to the Mar 2020 Reserve Study conducted for CTS there were 31 pull stations.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://res.cloudinary.com/engineering-com/image/upload/v1654600006/tips/Mar_2020_Champlain_reserve_study_cvwbo1.pdf[/url]

 

[BraunEHC]

Found this on Securitas settlement. With deepest pockets, the worse outcome of potential jury trial and nuclear verdict compelled their insurers to participate. They distanced themselves from liability and asserted they did not install or maintain security or safety systems, fire alarms or intercoms. Here’s a link and snippet:
Link