Surfside condo collapse.
 

Chicago Experts, Officials Weigh in After Miami Beach Condo Building Collapse – NBC Chicago

My father handled catastrophes for Fireman's Fund Insurance Company in the early 1990s. This brings back memories for me of some of places he visited back then.

I was watching the news and one of the missing people at Surfside told her son that she had been woken by loud creaking sounds the night before this awful event occurred.

https://twitter.com/search?q=surfsid...Ctwgr%5Esearch

Hurricane Andrew - Wikipedia

Recall he worked on Hurricane Andrew but not sure if he had been promoted to Fireman Fund's Catastrophe Manager by then. He retired around 1996 or late 1995.

I read somewhere that there was corrosion remediation that was scheduled to begin but I can't re-find that article.

I'll also note that there are exposed pillars in the area below the condos that is used for parking. They would be constantly exposed to salt air so possibly compromised. Maybe someone drove into one of them? When they finally unpack all the rubble, there may be more answers.

What a terrible thing to happen. I suspect this will change the building codes as much as Andrew did. This can't be allowed to happen again.

I'd heard there was other development going on in the general vicinity, and that the pile-drivers might have caused vibrations strong enough to cause an already-compromised building to collapse. Considering the salt air corrosion on exposed pillars in the garage, the fact that the building was over 40 years old and already slated for repairs, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

So horrible and senseless. And the developers keep on developing.

[QUOTE=OrangeBlossomBaby;1965084]I'd heard there was other development going on in the general vicinity, and that the pile-drivers might have caused vibrations strong enough to cause an already-compromised building to collapse. Considering the salt air corrosion on exposed pillars in the garage, the fact that the building was over 40 years old and already slated for repairs, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

So horrible and senseless. And the developers keep on developing.[/QUOTE]

Of course developers keep developing. The US population grew by 1,600,000 people last year, during a slow growth year. Those people have to live somewhere…

NYT: Engineer warned of structural damage in 2018. Of course they knew, this kind of disaster doesn't just sneak up on you.

[QUOTE=Swoop;1965086]Yup. And of course that somewhere HAS to be within 100 yards of the ocean. :oops:

It is definitely a horrible tragedy. I can't imagine having family or friends in the building and watching the slow (for good reasons), and so far unsuccessful, progress from the search crews. As for those currently classified as missing, I recall the story of the guy in his bed who was swallowed by a sinkhole and thinking how terrible THAT must have been - and it was only one person. If it were me in something like this, I would hope to be totally asleep, as I can't even imagine the abject horror, terror and feeling of helplessness if awake - as it was happening.

List of structural failures and collapses - Wikipedia

Looked up the history of these structural failings.

[QUOTE=MIBlumps;1965409]And of course every building that has ever collapsed has been within 100 yards of the ocean. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Considering what happens at Surf side, does this raise concern regarding the Lake Sumter Bridge? Are there not structural issues there? Is that going to come down as Villagers are driving across it?

Such a lot of meaningless speculation…

A real Tragedy, unlike getting undercooked English muffins at The Flying Biscuit.

Cya. It means cover your ass, of course every engineer will say that. There aren't any buildings in the world that there are defects after 40 years or problems. Our famous empire State building has issues thousands of bridges and thousands of schools have asbestos as well well not structural is a definite problem. So that every engineer if they want to maintain their good standing will say that there are problems

Oh please! A bridge in TV come down because a condo collapsed on the beach in Miami? Yeah I see the correlation.
Lets see, we have:
A car hit a support beam
Vibrations from construction down the street
Warnings by hearing creaking noises a few days before
Ridiculous guesses and thats what they are…guesses
How about the logical and almost confirmed fact: structural damage was found 3 years ago due to leakage in the pool area and garages and nothing was done about it. Basicly, a sink hole. Thats not confirmed but at least is a documented fact and plausible. A sink hole can occur anywhere and I believe TV had an area a few years ago. So, worrying about a bridge collapsing, a house imploding etc is a waste of time. You wont have warning until it occurs. Or, you can have signs and stick your head in the sand and ignore it like most do. How about we just wait and see the investigation conclusion.

In this case it wasn't simply defects, it was "major structural damage.... failure to replace in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially...."

FYI.... the mayor of Miami Dade just ordered evals of all like buildings, so perhaps "worry" is really foresight.

[QUOTE=Swoop;1965086]Current estimates are that if things don't change, two million more people will come across our southern border just this year. In a country that already has a short housing supply, I'm not quite sure where all of them are going to live.

Forgive me for asking an honest question. I guess you are all knowing . I was under the impression that there was concern over structural issues in the Lake Sumter bridge. That there were costly repairs needed that have not been completed. Am I mistaken? There are no issues with our bridge?

Don't take it personally, Girlcopper's responses are always caustic. I looked around and found nothing about the Morse Blvd bridge needing repair. I did find that Morse Island was eroding and an engineering assessment mentioned that no issues with the bridge were reported. Which means absolutely nothing. I also found how that bridge was constructed, very interesting. I marvel at the engineering.

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Sad, but hopefully most of the victims were sleeping soundly and it was quick.

And now the legal folks are salivating - and those who may be "responsible" are nervous.

Interesting graphic re collapse. >>.
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I haven't ever read that there were issues with how the Morse Bridge was built, but just what it is sitting on. We have different geological stuff under us here in North-Central Florida.

From the local online news;

"The Project Wide Advisory Committee has agreed to move forward with a $1.385 million project to repair damage caused by erosion at the Morse Boulevard Bridge.

PWAC members in a budget workshop Wednesday afternoon decided to move forward with the long-delayed work at the island under the bridge.

The sloughing problem at the bridge has been discussed for years by PWAC members. In 2019, PWAC took a fresh look at the project and agreed last year to spend $130,000 on professional service toward a Geoweb stone reinforced slope.

PWAC members at the budget workshop looked at two options. The cheaper option at $1.04 million would address only the west shoreline. The more expensive option would include the entire shoreline.

The Project Wide Advisory Committee has agreed to move forward with a project at the Morse Boulevard Bridge.
“We’ve been waiting on this for several years. We’ve been fighting Mother Nature on water levels. It isn’t going to get any cheaper,” said PWAC Chairman Don Wiley, a Village of Hillsborough resident who also serves as chairman of Community Development District 10.

Wiley pointed out that Morse Boulevard Bridge is critical to transportation in The Villages and there was concern about the impact the Geoweb project will have on traffic.


The bridge over Lake Sumter on Morse Boulevard is named for John E. Parker, an engineer and contractor who left a successful business in Michigan to help his friend, Villages Developer Gary Morse, create the largest retirement community in the world.
The work will have to take place during the dry season in the fall/winter season, said Director of Property Management Bruce Brown. The project will take about six months, he predicted. In addition to impacting traffic on the bridge, it will force the closure of Sunset Park, the golf cart accessible parking lot where Villagers frequently gather.

Wiley said it was important to remind residents there is nothing wrong with the bridge, which was named after John Parker, who was critical to the early development of The Villages.

“There is no problem with the bridge. There never has been. This is an erosion problem. Mother Nature is smarter than us. She always has been,” Wiley said."

TRUE???? It's only a matter of time . . .

Problem with bridge or abutments?
 

Latest scuttlebutt says the bridge is sound but the abutments have wandered from designed condition.

First lawsuit already filed, class action alleging the Condo Assoc failed to protect the residents. Asking for >5M.

Bottom line - Condo failed to do necessary maintenance probably because they didn't have sufficient amount in their REserve Fund.

[QUOTE=toeser;1965576]In neighbors garages!

[QUOTE=toeser;1965576]I told them they're welcome to camp in your yard.

All these Monday morning quarterbacks need to wait until the REAL OFFICIALS (mostly structural engineers) have had a chance to examine the site, do the calculation and come to some conclusions. Anyone that claims they know what caused this is full of it.

No one is Monday morning quarterbacking, no one has claimed to know what caused that bldg to fall. The forensic engineering expert in the clip was telling how the investigation would proceed, what signs they would be looking for in order to arrive at a conclusion. You should watch it, it is quite interesting to the non-engineer types.

Just a few basic things that apply to construction everywhere. Salt, (calcium) and heat are two enemies of concrete. Forty years ago in some cases, calcium was added to concrete to help it set up quickly. This action attacked the rebar in the mix. Chemical additives were invented some years back that can be added and the rebar is not under attack. There are ways to test the concrete that is in the pile to see what additive was used if in fact there was any at all.

Soil compaction and grading are also key ingredients to prevent disasters like this. Also using leftover concrete from the first delivery a truck makes in the next load deteriorates the strength and durability of the 2nd load. Remember the ceiling falling in on The Big Dig in the North East. Leftover Concrete.

Payoffs to inspectors to look away and sign that things passed was a very popular thing 20 to 40 years ago to help keep costs down. Sadly the poor people paid the price for one or more of the things I mentioned. God Help the Families.

I can imagine a sinkhole taking down one of those matchbox rental apartments in TV.