I don't understand it, either. There are reports out there that the pool sunk .... I posted the before and after photos to show that the pool survived the collapse and is a distance from the buildings that came down.
I, too, am wondering if the root cause is water damage, where else could it have come from??
I read there was a pool built indoors on top of the garage on the bottom floor.
See: Post 48
“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!!!”
A Professor said that the building had been sinking over the past decades, this would cause the concrete to crack, thereby exposing the rebar causing it to rust and weaken.
Well, 100 yards away is a geographic feature called the Atlantic Ocean. The foundation is sitting in a brackish groundwater environment. The concrete garage floor at the base of the building was spalling like crazy. If the rebar was not adequately protected galvanically or by very robust coatings, this kind of result should not be much of a surprise.