Posted on 06/28/2021 6:58:21 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The contractor visited the condo building last week to put together a bid for a cosmetic restoration of the pool as well as to price out new pool equipment — a small piece of the multimillion-dollar restoration project that just was getting underway at the 40-year-old building.
In the pool equipment room, located on the south side of the underground garage, the contractor saw another problem — exposed and corroding rebar in the concrete slab overhead. He snapped some pictures and sent them to his supervisor along with a note expressing concern that the job might be a bit more complicated than expected. He worried they would have to remove pool pipes to allow concrete restoration experts access to repair the slabs.
The building caved in two days later, before they had time to complete their bid.
A commercial pool contractor indicated where he saw serious corrosion in the Champlain Towers South pool equipment room in a photo he took two days before the building collapsed. COURTESY
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The location of the deep pool of standing water and cracked concrete and corroded rebar in the garage of Champlain Towers South condo, as pointed out by a pool contractor who toured the property two days before the collapse. EDUARDO ALVAREZ
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Right. And if I’m not mistaken, they put heavy trees around the outdoor pool. ?
WTH is a governor supposed to do about problems with private property?
Talk about micromanaging on an epic scale!
Well if that’s the case, they’ll be the ones sued into oblivion. This may sound naive but how do they make money owning just the building but not the units?
Annual inspections in most cities are the responsibility of the Fire Department. I was director of a municipal fire prevention bureau for several years. The first thing I told the folks I supervised was to expect that every inspection that preceded the one they were about to conduct was incomplete and they should expect major structural flaws. Every building has flaws, and the job of the inspector should be to consult an expert to help them determine how serious they are.
Sadly, most departments assign untrained engine company officers to inspect these types of multi-family residential, or marginally trained former fire officers as inspectors.
It would not surprise me to find that this building was inspected by City employees who had no idea how to identify serious structural flaws.
Yes. And the moment the light went out in the second one, it collapsed.
“the city of Miami building inspectors and the Mayor need to be shipped out into the gulf in a leaky boat’”
why? the building was located in the city of Surfside,FL ...
She is correct it is not an ugly comment, this damage HAD TO be repaired it was up to the owners to each put in their share of the money to do the repairs!! I saw on another site the pictures of the engineers dire concerns it was the pool area, these owners repeatedly did cosmetic repairs to the pool which was built over the garage!! It was going to cost each owner in the building $100,000 to do the repairs!! I would expect each surviving owner to file bankruptcy and there will be no recourse for the families!! I wonder how many of the deceased did not want to pay their share!! Now IF an owner had renters in a unit THEN they will be responsible!!!
“Dade County will be forced to redo its building inspection process”
county inspections apply only to unincorporated areas of the county ... the city of Surfside has its own building code and its own permitting and inspection processes, like all incorporated cities ...
These were not just SMALL structural flaws they were HUGE structural flaws which should have been extremely concerning to anyone!! I can’t honestly believe that people who lived there seeing the damage in the garage EVERYDAY continued to live there!!
I grew up in MA, but live in New Hampshire now. I occasionally have to venture down there, but I get in and out as quickly as I can. :-)
“I read the building is owned by a company and the actual living space is owned by the residents.
All those skyscraper apartments in big city work the same way. A company owns the actual building and the residents own just the interior space.”
condo buildings are owned and operated in aggregate by the condo unit owners via the condominium association they all belong to once the original builder has sold most of the original units ...
I had a family friend at the time who was an engineer for the Commonwealth. There are three bridges crossing the CT river in Springfield. He told me…always take the middle one.
This is what will happen with diversity jobs and those schools saying passing grades don’t matter and no white inspectors will be able to criticize shoddy work
Owners are responsible, not government flunkies.
Hyatt Regency skywalk’s collapse event showed that focus on building inspectors is futile and an incorrect waste of time. Owner’s and their designers and contractors are responsible for initial quality and sufficiency. Owners then are responsible alone for life cycle performance.
150 missing.
Cynically, I wonder. How many were democrat voters? How many were illegal aliens NOT on the tax roles, but receiving welfare checks and food stamps (EBT coupons/credit cards) and child support?
How old were you in 1980?
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