Posted on 06/26/2021 5:56:00 AM PDT by dynachrome
The partially collapsed Florida condo building, which has left at least four dead and 159 people missing, was flagged as having “major structural damage” in 2018, according to reports.
A lack of proper drainage on the pool deck of Champlain Towers South condo, which sits above the building’s parking garage, was the source of the “main issue,” wrote engineer Frank Morabito, according to the Miami Herald.
Years of standing water had seriously damaged the concrete structural slabs below the deck, a problem Morabito warned would be “extremely expensive” to fix.
“Failure to replace waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” Morabito said in his “Structural Field Survey Report,” which was produced for the Condominium Association.
Officials in Surfside, Fla., released the report late Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I wondered about that pool when I saw the pics...
It was probably too expensive to fix, so they let it go ... /s
It's too bad it had to come to this, but we can always hope that the condo board members are among the casualties of this tragedy.
Town is run by dimocrats. Nuff said
Heard a structural engineer on my radio program yesterday.
He said any building close to the ocean is vulnerable to corrosion - both metal and cement - from a constant salt breeze. The building was 40 years old.
Workers had also piled heavy construction equipment on the roof.
He also wondered if the main weight-bearing pillar weakened and the building pancaked floor by floor onto itself.
Still, heartbreaking for the victims’ families.
I remember a high rise building in Alexandria,Va that collapsed while under construction. The pools frame was dismantled too soon so the concrete spread and caused the collapse. 1973 or 74 I believe.
Vertical home owners association’s
If I lived in the section that is still standing I’d grab my family and what I could carry,leave and don’t look back.
The lawsuits will be epic in this one.
Sounds like there is no effective outside owner to sue.
Check out the before and after photos of the condo towers
The pool does not appear damaged in any way in the after photo.
“too expensive to fix,”
Wonder what the ‘special assessment’ would have been to fix it?
Kind of like the Ford Pinto.
Cheaper to pay the dead people’s family than recall and fix it.
I would hope the remaining half of the building has been declared non-habitable already and everyone has already been kicked out.
Lawyers are circling the site like vultures looking for carrion.
Excellent graphic. Thank you for posting.
Looks like the engineer documented damage and said it should be fixed in the “near future”, but that’s pretty tepid and imprecise language.
There is the condo association and a first class-action suit has already been filed against them. Not too likely their insurance goes deep enough for this loss of life, however.
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