What do you think about the construction company that was affiliated with Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida? Chances are, a lot of ugly words can come to mind. However, many individuals are now questioning whether this company cut corners and less than the required amount of steel into this condominium building. The investigation into the collapse of the Champlain towers continues, but the first sign of construction issues seems to be that there was a severe lack of steel in the original design.
A growing number of engineering experts are looking at the lack of steel as a red flag, with many pointing out that the amount of steel that was utilized to connect to the building’s vertical columns below the parking deck was MUCH LESS than what the original plans had called for.
A forensic engineering expert hired by the city of Surfside noted the following:
“The bars do not appear to be arranged like the original drawings had called for. We would need to inspect the rubble closer in order to properly gauge whether the slab-to-column connections had less steel than required.”
R. Shankar Nair is affiliated with the National Academy of Engineering and a chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat saw inconsistencies between the steel and the design that had remained visible in the columns.
“There does not appear to be enough steel connecting these slabs to the columns. Thus, one of the things that we are seeing here is something that is inconsistent with the original drawings.”
Experts continue to investigate the collapse of these condominiums, and so there is definitely a chance that these initial findings could change. Moreover, the engineers could even determine that there was more than one factor that brought the building down. Construction regulations and inspections have come a long way since the 1980s, but the Champlain towers had been constructed before then.
There have been plenty of eyewitness accounts from the survivors that point to the flooding on the ramp and the presence of standing water inside the underground garage before the collapse. There was even one resident who took video of the water pouring from the ceiling of the garage.
Interestingly enough, there have been even more reports of flooding in not just the garage but the pool equipment room as well. Thus, it could be possible that this combination of continuous flooding and weakening cement could have led to the collapse of the tower. Yet another engineer who examined the structure of the now-collapsed building noted that “we have a whole bunch of issues that could be a part of or even the trigger of what caused the building to collapse.”
An individual who survived the collapse of the building said that all of the residents were being assessed a $1,000 fee for restoration of the pool and the rest of the building. However, she was not alerted to the problems of the structure even though she paid $600,000 for a two-bedroom unit on the sixth floor.
According to the Miami Herald, a report, “Structural Field Survey Report,” was produced for the condo association in October 2018 by engineer Frank Morabito of Morabito Consultants. Morabito observed that th “main issue” at Champlain Towers was that the pool deck and outdoor planters “laid on a flat structure,” preventing proper draining of the water. The lack of waterproofing was “a systemic issue” that traced back to a flaw “in the development of the original contract documents” 40 years ago, the report said.
“If they continue to neglect to replace this waterproofing, it could lead to exponential concrete deterioration in the near future,” the engineer said.
The report clearly states that the repairs needed to be done soon and that they would be expensive…
Take a look at the comments from Pablo Rodriguez, whose mother and grandmother lived in the Champlain Towers:
Pablo Rodriguez told CNN: “The board of the Champlain Towers collected over a million dollars in maintenance from the residents per year. Where did that money go? It clearly wasn’t going to maintenance.”
“You see these pictures. How did they not tell people that it was in this horrible of a condition? When you consider that the rebar was exposed and you have a contractor that says that there was a severe lack of maintenance…it’s, it’s shocking that they allowed it to get to this point. It’s negligence, and their negligence caused a lot of people to die here.”