[absalom01]

I’ve been looking at the original structural drawings, and there’s no obvious goof. But was not aware that there have been reports of missing steel. Is that local media? Do you have a link handy?

[Rockingham]

I saw the report of construction defects in a NY Times article that I accessed via a tablet that gets behind the paywall. As I recall, experts surmised from photos and on scene viewing that rebar specified in the construction plans seemed to be lacking at one key point and otherwise of poor quality. The failure was supposedly in the connection between support columns and the horizontal slabs.

That is all too plausible. A lifelong Floridian, I saw the Miami-Dade construction boom of the 1980s on frequent visits there and as an attorney working in real estate development and then bank regulation. South Florida was newly awash in money from the drug trade, with lawyers, bankers, and businessmen busy finding ways to launder and invest the torrent of dirty cash. Real estate and construction were the venue of choice for doing so.

And yes, corruption was rampant and shoddy building practices were all too common. With liberal Democrat Miami-Dade then dominant in state politics, there was an air of lax standards and a wink and a nod toward misconduct in government and business.