By CURT ANDERSON and BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
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This photo provided by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, search and rescue personnel search for survivors through the rubble at the Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside, Fla., section of Miami, Friday, June 25, 2021. The apartment building partially collapsed on Thursday. (Miami-Dade Fire Rescue via AP)
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Some of the concrete columns were cracked. The parking garage was frequently flooded with corrosive saltwater. And the roof was undergoing repairs, with crews pounding on the tower from above for weeks.
Officials don’t yet know whether any — or all — of those factors caused a Florida beachside condominium tower to suddenly collapse Thursday morning.
But experts are closely examining a 2018 repor t that identified numerous issues with the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, including “major structural damage” to a concrete structural slab below its pool deck that needed to be extensively repaired.
“Failure to replace waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” said the report from the Morabito Consultants engineering firm. The situation is a “major error” dating to the building’s original construction, according to the report, which was released with other documents late Friday by Surfside officials.
The report also uncovered “abundant cracking” and other faults in concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage. Some of the damage was minor, while other columns had exposed and deteriorating rebar.
It wasn’t immediately clear from the documents whether this issue or others identified in the report were ever dealt with or had any role in the building collapse. Frank Morabito, the firm’s president, did not immediately respond Saturday to an email seeking comment.
The building was in the midst of its 40-year recertification process, which requires detailed structural and electrical inspections. In an interview Friday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said he wasn’t sure if the inspection had been completed, but he said it may contain vital clues.
“It should have been a very straightforward thing,” Burkett said. “Buildings in America do not just fall down like this. There is a reason. We need to find out what that reason is.”
The 12-story tower’s collapse has left at least four people dead, 159 missing as of Friday and numerous questions about how this could have happened — and whether other similar buildings are in danger.
Details of the Champlain Towers recertification inspection will be made public once they are completed, Surfside Town Clerk Sandra McCready said in an email.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference Friday that she has seen no evidence of a sinkhole — much more common in other parts of Florida — or of something criminal, such as a bomb.
“I can tell you that at this time, they haven’t found any evidence of foul play,” she said.
Beyond that, much focus is on ocean water, which is rising in South Florida and elsewhere because of climate change. Last year, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure that would require developers to complete sea-level rise studies before beginning publicly funded projects.
Like everyone else, the governor wants answers about the cause of the collapse as soon as possible.
“We need a definitive answer for how this might have happened,” DeSantis said at a news conference. “It really is a unique type of tragedy to have, in the middle of the night, half a building just collapse like that.”
Meanwhile, the land on which Champlain Towers sits has been gradually sinking, according to a study published last year by an environmental professor at Florida International University.
But the professor, Shimon Wdowinski, cautioned against blaming the collapse on the caving ground. The study used satellite data collected between 1993 to 1999 to study the sinking of land in Norfolk, Virginia, and Miami Beach.
In a video interview released by the university, Wdowinski said his study found numerous examples of sinking earth, some leading to cracks in buildings — which he called “pretty common” in Florida.
“In most cases, these buildings just move,” he said, “there’s no catastrophic collapse like in the case in Surfside, which was very unfortunate.”
Another theory is that the saltwater ubiquitous in the area, which is subject to flooding during so-called King Tide events, intrudes into concrete supports, corrodes the steel-reinforcing rebar inside and weakens the concrete.
Abi Aghayere, an engineering researcher at Drexel University, said determining if there was such deterioration could be one key to the collapse.
“Did a column fail by itself? This column has been carrying this load for 40 years, why would it fail now?” said Aghayere, adding that it is rare for rebar to be corroded without anyone noticing. “You will have concrete popping out, falling out.”
Others have cited frequent flooding in the building’s lower parking garage, including the possibility of water seeping up underneath through the porous limestone rock on which the barrier island sits that includes Surfside and Miami Beach.
Surfside officials say roof work was ongoing at the now-collapsed tower but have downplayed the possibility that work was a cause. Barry Cohen, a lawyer who escaped the crippled Champlain Towers building with his wife, said the roof work could be part of a “perfect storm” of causes that combined to bring down the structure.
“They were doing a new roof. And I think, all day long, the building was pounding and pounding and pounding. They’ve been doing it for over a month,” Cohen said.
Another issue cited by some people is construction at a nearby building that might cause vibrations that weakened Champlain Towers. Cohen said he raised concerns previously that the work was possibly causing cracked pavers on the pool deck.
The collapse is already drawing lawsuits, including one filed hours after the collapse by attorney Brad Sohn against the condo’s homeowners association seeking damages for negligence and other reasons for all of the tower’s residents.
The association, the lawsuit contends, “could have prevented the collapse of Champlain Towers South through the exercise of ordinary care, safety measures and oversight.”
An attorney for the association, Ken Direktor, did not respond Friday to an email requesting comment.
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Associated Press writers Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Bernard Condon in New York contributed to this report.
SEE
LET'S NOT FORGET THIS HAPPENED ONLY
THREE DAYS EARLIER
‘Deep fire’ slowing rescue effort at collapsed Florida condo
By RUSS BYNUM, CURT ANDERSON and BERNARD CONDON
SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) — A “very deep fire” hampered rescue efforts Saturday at the collapsed oceanfront condominium tower near Miami where authorities are racing to recover any survivors beneath a mountain of rubble, officials said.
Rescuers were using infrared technology, water and foam to battle the blaze, whose source was unclear. Smoke has been the biggest barrier, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a news conference.
“We’re facing very incredible difficulties with this fire. It’s a very deep fire. It’s extremely difficult to locate the source of the fire,” she said.
One hundred fifty-nine people remain unaccounted for since Thursday’s collapse, which killed at least four.
Authorities also announced Saturday they are beginning an audit of buildings nearing their 40-year review — like the fallen Champlain Towers South — to make sure they’re safe.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have joined local and state authorities at the site, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
The news came after word of a 2018 engineering report that showed the building had “major structural damage” to a concrete slab below its pool deck that needed extensive repairs, part of a series of documents released by the city of Surfside.
While the report from the firm of Morabito Consultants did not warn of imminent danger from the damage — and it is unclear if any of the damage observed was responsible for the collapse — it did note the need for extensive and costly repairs to fix systemic issues with the building.
It said the waterproofing under the pool deck had failed and had been improperly laid flat instead of sloped, preventing water from draining off.
“The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replaced the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” the report said.
The firm recommended that the damaged slabs be replaced in what would be a major repair.
The report also uncovered “abundant cracking and spalling” of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage. Some of the damage was minor, while other columns had exposed and deteriorating rebar. It also noted that many of the building’s previous attempts to fix the columns and other damage with epoxy were marred by poor workmanship and were failing.
Beneath the pool deck “where the slab had been epoxy-injected, new cracks were radiating from the originally repaired cracks,” the report said.
Gregg Schlesinger, a former construction project engineer who is now a lawyer handling construction defect cases, said another area of concern in the report is cracks that were discovered in the tower’s stucco facade. Schlesinger said that could indicate structural problems inside the exterior that could have been critical in the collapse.
“The building speaks to us. It is telling us we have a serious problem,” Schlesinger said in a phone interview Saturday.
He added that there are frequently “telltale signs” on oceanfront buildings indicating problems structurally largely from saltwater and salty air intrusion.
“This is a wakeup call for folks on the beach. Investigate and repair. This should be done every five years,” Schlesinger added. “The scary portion is the other buildings. You think this is unique? No.”
Abi Aghayere, a Drexel University engineering researcher, said the extent of the damage shown in the engineering report was notable. In addition to possible problems under the pool, he said several areas above the entrance drive showing signs of deterioration were worrisome and should have been repaired immediately because access issues prevented a closer inspection.
“Were the supporting members deteriorated to the extent that a critical structural element or their connections failed leading to progressive collapse?” he wrote in an email to the AP after reviewing the report. “Were there other areas in the structure that were badly deteriorated and unnoticed?”
On Saturday, a crane could be seen removing pieces of rubble from a more than 30-foot pile of debris at the collapse site. Scores of rescuers used big machines, small buckets, drones, microphones and their own hands to pick through the mountain of debris that had been the 12-story Champlain Towers South.
Levine Cava told WPLG there was no change in the number of people still unaccounted for: “We are at status quo,” she said. “I’m hopeful this will be a day that we have will have a breakthrough.”
Rachel Spiegel was anxious for any update on her missing mother, 66-year-old Judy Spiegel, who lived on the sixth floor.
“I’m just praying for a miracle,” Spiegel said. “We’re heartbroken that she was even in the building.”
Jeanne Ugarte was coming to grips with what she feared was a tragic end for longtime friends Juan and Ana Mora and their son Juan Jr., who was visiting his parents in their condo at the tower.
“I know they’re not going to find them (alive),” Ugarte said. “It’s been too long.”
While officials said no cause for the collapse early Thursday has been determined, Gov. Ron DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner. Video showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first, followed by a section nearer to the beach.
The 2018 report was part of preliminary work by the engineering company conducting the building’s required inspections for a recertification due this year of the building’s structural integrity at 40 years. The condominium tower was built in 1981.
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Condon reported from New York. Associated Press Terry Spencer in Surfside contributed to this report.
