Developers of doomed Fla. tower were once accused of paying off officials: report (Champlain Towers - Surfside)

nypost.com ^ | 06.27.2021 | Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

[rxsid]

Developers of doomed Fla. tower were once accused of paying off officials: report

The developers of the Miami condo tower that collapsed were once accused of paying off local officials to get permits for the site — which needed $15 million in repairs just to bring it to code, a new report says.

Building rivals claimed that the partners behind Surfside Champlain Towers South were receiving preferential treatment when it came to getting through the permit system as the site was being built in 1981, the Washington Post said.

Surfside’s developers had contributed to the campaigns of at least two town council members, then demanded that the donations be returned when the allegations surfaced, according to the outlet.

...

All of the principals believed to have been involved in the design and construction of the building are already dead, the outlet said.

The developers behind the project had included Nathan Reiber, a Polish-born Canadian who was also once charged with tax evasion and cited for legal misconduct in Canada, the report said.

Reiber, who died in 2014, had been charged with tax evasion by Canadian authorities in the 1970s when he and his partners were accused of skimming cash from apartment buildings they owned.

They allegedly skimmed tens of thousands of dollars from coin-operated laundry machines in the buildings and pocketed about $120,000 from phony construction checks, the Washington Post said.

...

The following year, the Champlain developers asked two local council members to return their campaign contributions amid accusations that the company had paid off officials to get the permits.

Two other firms — consulting engineers Brieterman Jurado & Associates and architects William M. Friedman & Associates — were involved in the construction of the site.

[yldstrk]

Nope.

[rxsid]

The PE's report from 2018 talked about the deterioration expanding "exponentially."

For those of us who are not PE's, this article explains concrete "spalling."

CONCRETE SPALLING

There are many causes of concrete spalling; they include the improper placement of concrete and its reinforcing, electrochemical (galvanic) reactions between embedded metals within the concrete matrix, and corrosion of embedded reinforcing steel due to exposure to water and/or chemicals. This article will address concrete spalling as a result of corrosion of its steel reinforcing and how concrete placement and its exposure can affect the corrosion process.

WHAT IS CONCRETE SPALLING AND WHAT ARE ITS EFFECTS?

A spall is defined as flakes of material that are broken off of a larger solid body. Concrete spalling typically begins when the steel reinforcing embedded within the concrete member rusts. Contrary to popular belief, concrete is porous. Rusting of the embedded steel reinforcing occurs when that reinforcing bar is exposed to water and air; without both of these elements, the steel bar does not rust. When exposed to both of those elements, a chemical reaction takes place wherein iron oxide (rust) is produced. The production of iron oxide includes a volumetric expansion of the bar by up to 6 times the original volume, and that increase in volume imposes significant expansive forces upon the surrounding concrete. These expansive forces can cause the concrete to delaminate or to crack, spall, and break off. An illustration of this is shown below:

Delamination and spalling of a concrete member are both undesirable conditions; not only do they represent a potential struck-by hazard in the scenario where the spalled concrete falls and strikes a person, but they also reduce the cross sectional area of the concrete member and decrease its ability to safely carry imposed loads. An additional consideration is that both delamination and spalling offer increased access of air and water to the reinforcing steel within that member; thus creating a cycle of corrosion and increased access of the corrosive elements exacerbating the process with each subsequent cycle.

Beyond the obvious aesthetic issues, a reduction in the cross sectional area due to spalling and delamination is synonymous with a weakened concrete section.

The following are examples of how environmental conditions can accelerate the process of corrosion and rust in steel members by exposing the concrete member to aggressive chemical forces:

In coastal regions (areas adjacent to bodies of saltwater), the salt-laden air continuously deposits salt on the surface of the concrete member. These salts dissolve in rainwater and then permeate the concrete matrix along with the water, made chloride-rich and highly caustic by the salt.

...

https://www.robsonforensic.com/articles/concrete-spalling-expert-article/

[rxsid]

Are you a PE?

[yldstrk]

Nope. Lawyer.

[Jimmy Valentine]

In the 1970’s the Skyline Towers project collapsed because wooden supports were removed before the concrete floors were sufficiently dry and cured. Pancakes down floor to floor.

[chuck allen]

“Appearing to reinforce the experts’ theory is the story of a resident who called her husband moments before the collapse to tell him she could see a crater in the pool area from the fourth-floor balcony of their ocean-front apartment. Then the line went dead, said Mike Stratton, who was out of town at the time. His wife, Cassie, is among the 156 people who are still unaccounted for.

Greg Batista, a professional engineer who specializes in concrete repair and worked on the Surfside condo’s pool deck in 2017, said that the way the building fell points to an initial collapse of the pool deck area into the parking garage, which then dragged down the other parts of the condo tower in a “domino effect.” Structural engineer and retired building inspector Gene Santiago agreed that was a probable trigger and pointed to a 2018 inspection, first reported by the Herald, that noted “major structural damage” below the pool deck.”

[rxsid]

Ah, makes sense now.

So you think it was terrorism?

Since about half of the building still stands, did the terrorists ...

forget to "wire" up the rest of the building?

did they only have enough money to wire up half the building?

They only wired about a 1/3 of the building, causing the center part to slough down (i.e. not pancake) and then the part closest to the ocean fell on its own? Or did they detonate that piece around 10 seconds later?

they wired the whole thing, but some explosives just didn't go off while others did?

they were in the process of wiring the entire support structure, but were caught in the act and the person that caught them died in the collapse?

Or what?

[chuck allen]

Look at the first and 3rd pics after the video. You can clearly see the crater. You can also see the piers from below the pool deck sticking up from below, see the number 42 written on the white pier designating a parking spot. That belongs under the deck. The pool area collapsed and took down the rest. Look at the cars, they have fell 4 feet, see parking spot #72. The parking deck belongs above the white part of the pier. The brown part of pier should be above ground.

https://people.com/human-interest/man-has-no-hope-after-miami-condo-collapse-where-mom-and-grandmother-lived/

[JLAGRAYFOX]

IMHO.....You are right on the money. The same way, we, the people, were lied to relative the deadly virus...we are now not being told the truth of what could have caused this horrible deadly tragedy....structural failure or terrorism against American Jews & American Citizens!!! The media is once again not telling the facts of the story one way or the other!!! And....Obama, Biden, etc., could care less, because he and his ultra left wing, Democrat Muslims are all Jew haters!!!

[Organic Panic]

When I saw it I thought sinkhole. But I don’t know if they get sinkholes in that part of florida.

[yldstrk]

It was a focused explosion.

[minnesota_bound]

You can trust that these guys built the towers with the best of equipment and material.... FTA: Reiber when he and his partners were accused of skimming cash from apartment buildings they owned. They allegedly skimmed tens of thousands of dollars from coin-operated laundry machines in the buildings and pocketed about $120,000 from phony construction checks, the Washington Post said.

[Lurker]

Atlanta in 2012

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/parking-deck-collapse-puzzle-for-engineers/NkNXAm9imkhmfEJ1sdrOLJ/

L

[GOPJ]

No mention of ‘party’ when talking about payoffs... so that means it’s democrats.

If the politicians paid off were Republican it would be in the headline...

[kiryandil]

No mention of ‘party’ when talking about payoffs... so that means it’s democrats.

It IS Slime-ami...

[rxsid]

Focused to only take down part of the building?

[rxsid]

"Look at the first and 3rd pics after the video. You can clearly see the crater. You can also see the piers from below the pool deck sticking up from below, see the number 42 written on the white pier designating a parking spot. That belongs under the deck. The pool area collapsed and took down the rest. Look at the cars, they have fell 4 feet, see parking spot #72. The parking deck belongs above the white part of the pier. The brown part of pier should be above ground."

Indeed. Great eye! Informative pics of part of the pool deck collapse.

 

[rxsid]

re Greg Batista. A similar quote from him:

"Greg Batista, a professional engineer from Davie who specializes in concrete repair projects, said that after watching the Surfside condo tower collapsing to rubble in online videos, one potential structural flaw jumped out at him.

“Concrete spalling.” Here’s what it means.

Batista said that when salt water seeps into porous concrete, it causes the reinforced steel rods known as rebar in the support beams to rust and expand. In turn, the expansion breaks up the concrete and that weakens the beams.

It’s like “concrete cancer” spreading, said Batista, who worked on the planter boxes on the pool deck at the Champlain Towers South Condo building in 2017.

“Once the cancer spreads, the concrete breaks up and becomes weaker and weaker as time goes on,” Batista said. “My best guess is that’s what happened here. This building has a garage on the lower floors. If you have one column subjected to spalling, the no. 1 suspect here, it could fail. That one beam could bring down the whole building like a domino effect.”

https://www.tampabay.com/news/2021/06/24/surfside-building-that-collapsed-was-starting-a-critical-inspection-process-what-went-wrong/

[chuck allen]

Thanks for bringing the pics over here. Your photoshop helps see what I’m seeing. Notice the first four cars on the left side have fell in, the other cars are still above ground where they belong.

[chuck allen]

In that 1st pic, the Rescue guy with the dog is at least 6 or 7 feet lower than he normally should/would be. He should be walking above the white line of the pillars.