12 story apartment building suddenly collapses in Miami

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Why would they need 'bodily confirmation' of any survivors?

Because their families might want to bury their remains?

DNA can confirm.

Why would the families want to bury the survivors?

 

[woolfe9998]

Why would the families want to bury the survivors?

We're talking about dead people, not survivors. I am assuming at this point that all missing are dead.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Ouch:

"Owners of the 136 units had been told earlier this year they would have to pay their share of a $15 million assessment — $9.1 million of which was major work — by July 1. That assessment ranged from about $80,000 for a one-bedroom unit to more than $330,000 for a penthouse."

Despite warning, town deemed condo building in 'good shape'

Despite an engineer’s warning of major structural problems, a town building official told board members their Florida high-rise condominium was in “very good shape” almost three years before it collapsed.

apnews.com

That's gotta leave a dent in the bank account.

 

[hal2kilo]

Ouch:

"Owners of the 136 units had been told earlier this year they would have to pay their share of a $15 million assessment — $9.1 million of which was major work — by July 1. That assessment ranged from about $80,000 for a one-bedroom unit to more than $330,000 for a penthouse."

Despite warning, town deemed condo building in 'good shape'

Despite an engineer’s warning of major structural problems, a town building official told board members their Florida high-rise condominium was in “very good shape” almost three years before it collapsed.

apnews.com

That's gotta leave a dent in the bank account.

Yep. It's a frigging nightmare. I knew some people who's condo complex had to have all the carports replaced, and bunch of other things that were due to shoddy construction. These people have even more liability.

 

[Zorba]

They might yet pull a survivor or few out of the wreckage but that's extremely unlikely.

Last one in OKC was 10 hours later, last one at WTC was 27 hours. At this point I think it's a recovery mission.

 

[Zorba]

We're talking about dead people, not survivors. I am assuming at this point that all missing are dead.

They were talking about living people, thus their usage of the word "survivors."

 

[woolfe9998]

They were talking about living people, thus their usage of the word "survivors."

Yes, but that is irrelevant since there is virtually no chance of any more survivors. What I am curious about is why they haven't found the remains of more than 10 people if ~160 died in the collapse. Maybe they have a bunch of body parts and we're waiting for DNA results?

 

[fskimospy]

Yes, but that is irrelevant since there is virtually no chance of any more survivors. What I am curious about is why they haven't found the remains of more than 10 people if ~160 died in the collapse. Maybe they have a bunch of body parts and we're waiting for DNA results?

Guys woolfe is right. If we are lucky maybe one or two, and maybe one or two who lived there but weren’t present. The most likely scenario is they are all dead.

 

[pmv]

Really does sound quite analogous to Grenfell, just a different mode of failure leading to a slightly different form of horror and tragedy.

I wonder if there will be a similar aftermath to the 'cladding scandal' that followed Grenfell? Will lots of other buildings now turn out to have similar flaws, with arguments over who pays the bill for fixing it?

 

[hal2kilo]

Really does sound quite analogous to Grenfell, just a different mode of failure leading to a slightly different form of horror and tragedy.

I wonder if there will be a similar aftermath to the 'cladding scandal' that followed Grenfell? Will lots of other buildings now turn out to have similar flaws, with arguments over who pays the bill for fixing it?

I swear, the standards people better get back to work. I heard all kinds of comments that, well that's what you expect from a 40 year old condo that wasn't maintained properly. I'm assuming that most of these were typically built with tension cables installed on all the floors. Those cannot be compromised. It's not just rebar. I wouldn't be surprised that after they start inspecting a lot of those condos, there will be some emergency evacuations.
.

 

[MtnMan]

A guy who lived in the condo girlfriend convinced him to spend the night at her place. I don't know if he got lucky, but he definitely got lucky.

By chance, Florida building resident stayed at girlfriend's on night of disaster

Champlain Towers South resident Erick de Moura was supposed to be home when the building collapsed, but his girlfriend persuaded him to spend the night at her place less than two miles away, a circumstance that likely saved his life.

www.reuters.com

 

[brycejones]

I swear, the standards people better get back to work. I heard all kinds of comments that, well that's what you expect from a 40 year old condo that wasn't maintained properly. I'm assuming that most of these were typically built with tension cables installed on all the floors. Those cannot be compromised. It's not just rebar. I wouldn't be surprised that after they start inspecting a lot of those condos, there will be some emergency evacuations.
.

Also some condo boards are going to have really uncomfortable conversations about how much money they have to spend to fix things that should have been addressed years before.

 

[manly]

Yes, but that is irrelevant since there is virtually no chance of any more survivors. What I am curious about is why they haven't found the remains of more than 10 people if ~160 died in the collapse. Maybe they have a bunch of body parts and we're waiting for DNA results?

If I understand correctly, they're cautiously dealing with a 13-story pile of rubble (mostly concrete) so it's not surprising to me that it's been slow going. There was a fire deep within the rubble that complicated matters early on.

Immediately after the tragedy, it was reported that many condo residents don't live there permanently so there was some hope that not all of the "unaccounted" folks were there at the time. I doubt that a large number haven't yet "checked in"; but theoretically some unit owners could be overseas and still unaware of what happened to the building.

A guy who lived in the condo girlfriend convinced him to spend the night at her place. I don't know if he got lucky, but he definitely got lucky.

By chance, Florida building resident stayed at girlfriend's on night of disaster

Champlain Towers South resident Erick de Moura was supposed to be home when the building collapsed, but his girlfriend persuaded him to spend the night at her place less than two miles away, a circumstance that likely saved his life.

www.reuters.com

Best girlfriend ever.

 

[Jaskalas]

What I am curious about is why they haven't found the remains of more than 10 people if ~160 died in the collapse. Maybe they...

They are moving extremely slow due to the inherent danger of the ruble collapsing and killing both survivors and rescue personnel.

Things will move a bit more quickly when they transition to recovery. But it's still a jumbled mess where moving any one piece may collapse others.

 

[woolfe9998]

Still slow going. Death toll at 16, 147 still missing.

Miami-Dade mayor says 16 now confirmed dead from Surfside collapse

Search and rescue efforts continue after a building in Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed. Follow here for the latest news.

www.cnn.com

 

[Leeea]

Still slow going. Death toll at 16, 147 still missing.

Miami-Dade mayor says 16 now confirmed dead from Surfside collapse

Search and rescue efforts continue after a building in Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed. Follow here for the latest news.

www.cnn.com

They need to carefully take apart the unstable rubble piece by piece to find the bodies. Without injuring any of the disassemblers. When unstable parts weighing several tons can instantly kill workers if/when they shift, this is a difficult and dangerous task.

I expect it will be slow going for weeks to come.

 

[hal2kilo]

Also some condo boards are going to have really uncomfortable conversations about how much money they have to spend to fix things that should have been addressed years before.

You mean like this?

Majority of Florida condo board quit in 2019 as squabbling residents dragged out plans for repairs (msn.com)

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Search efforts halted due to concerns about the rest of the building:

Rescue efforts resume at collapse site; demolition planned

Rescue efforts at the site of a partially collapsed Florida condominium building have resumed after a 15-hour pause for safety concerns, and officials say they are planning for the likely demolition of the remaining structure.

apnews.com

 

[purbeast0]

They need to stop being politically correct and stop calling it a rescue mission. It's a recovery mission. There are no more survivors.

 

[hal2kilo]

Looks like we can figure out the source of the sinkhole.

Video shows water gushing into garage moments before Florida condo collapse (granthshala.com)

 

[pmv]

Looks like we can figure out the source of the sinkhole.

Video shows water gushing into garage moments before Florida condo collapse (granthshala.com)

So the water was pouring into the garage from the floor above? Not that I have any expert knowledge whatsoever, but I would have assumed that was a symptom of the impending collapse rather than any kind of cause of it? Whatever fracturing in the structure was occurring perhaps broke water pipes?

 

[hal2kilo]

So the water was pouring into the garage from the floor above? Not that I have any expert knowledge whatsoever, but I would have assumed that was a symptom of the impending collapse rather than any kind of cause of it? Whatever fracturing in the structure was occurring perhaps broke water pipes?

All those possibilities. But, water flowing to no proper drainage is a good way to make a sinkhole. One of the reports above said the pool was falling into one just before the phone went dead.

 

[hal2kilo]

So the water was pouring into the garage from the floor above? Not that I have any expert knowledge whatsoever, but I would have assumed that was a symptom of the impending collapse rather than any kind of cause of it? Whatever fracturing in the structure was occurring perhaps broke water pipes?

Just saw the video in detail on CNN. The people that took the video, heard a large boom. That's why they video'd. If you look further into the garage, there is already chucks of concrete laying on the garage floor.

 

[pmv]

Just saw the video in detail on CNN. The people that took the video, heard a large boom. That's why they video'd. If you look further into the garage, there is already chucks of concrete laying on the garage floor.

Not sure what that implies - did they mean a boom like concrete suddenly breaking or an explosion-type 'boom'?
Anyway, I guess it's best left to the experts and the authorities to work it out.

As an aside, it has intrigued me in the past how US and European high-rise buildings use different construction techniques, and so have entirely different failure-modes. Grenfell didn't collapse the way the WTC did - which some crazy people took as more evidence for their 'inside job' conspiracy-theories about 911 - but I gather that's in reality because the latter used the US style of a steel-frame with concrete 'hanging' from it, so it collapsed becuse the heat made the girders soften to the point where they coudln't support the weight of the concrete floors, causing them to collapse like a house of cards from the top floor downwards (each floor falling forcefully onto the floor below it, causing a successive collapse).

European high buildings like Grenfell are, apparently, more likely to be constructed as a series of concrete panels, each supported on the ones below, and so held up by compression rather than suspension. That's not suspectible to the 'fire weakening girders makes whole thing collapse' type failure that happened with the WTC. But it's also why when I was looking at flats in such buildings, none of them had gas heating (which put me off, as electric heating is much more expensive).

Ronan Point (famous high-rise disaster of a few decades ago) collapsed because a gas explosion in a lower floor blew out the walls, leaving everything above that point unsupported, causing the whole thing to collapse, so ever since that disaster they stopped using gas in such buildings. US high-rises are not susceptable to that kind of failure, but instead they can fail the way the WTC did (though I heard a suggestion that happened becuase they didn't get the heat-insulation on the girders right when constructing it). Seems like either method can suffer catastrophic failure, just of very different forms for each one.

Of course I don't know what kind of construction this particular condo used - as it's not a skyscraper, maybe it didn't use the steel-frame method of the likes of the WTC anyway? How the collapse came about is presumbaly critically-dependent on what kind of construction method it used.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Not sure what that implies - did they mean a boom like concrete suddenly breaking or an explosion-type 'boom'?
Anyway, I guess it's best left to the experts and the authorities to work it out.

As an aside, it has intrigued me in the past how US and European high-rise buildings use different construction techniques, and so have entirely different failure-modes. Grenfell didn't collapse the way the WTC did - which some crazy people took as more evidence for their 'inside job' conspiracy-theories about 911 - but I gather that's in reality because the latter used the US style of a steel-frame with concrete 'hanging' from it, so it collapsed becuse the heat made the girders soften to the point where they coudln't support the weight of the concrete floors, causing them to collapse like a house of cards from the top floor downwards (each floor falling forcefully onto the floor below it, causing a successive collapse).

European high buildings like Grenfell are, apparently, more likely to be constructed as a series of concrete panels, each supported on the ones below, and so held up by compression rather than suspension. That's not suspectible to the 'fire weakening girders makes whole thing collapse' type failure that happened with the WTC. But it's also why when I was looking at flats in such buildings, none of them had gas heating (which put me off, as electric heating is much more expensive).

Ronan Point (famous high-rise disaster of a few decades ago) collapsed because a gas explosion in a lower floor blew out the walls, leaving everything above that point unsupported, causing the whole thing to collapse, so ever since that disaster they stopped using gas in such buildings. US high-rises are not susceptable to that kind of failure, but instead they can fail the way the WTC did (though I heard a suggestion that happened becuase they didn't get the heat-insulation on the girders right when constructing it). Seems like either method can suffer catastrophic failure, just of very different forms for each one.

Of course I don't know what kind of construction this particular condo used - as it's not a skyscraper, maybe it didn't use the steel-frame method of the likes of the WTC anyway? How the collapse came about is presumbaly critically-dependent on what kind of construction method it used.

The structure of the WTC is extremely common all over the world. None of the concrete is "hanging" and the concrete in the WTC is generally found only as floor infill and around the stair/elevator shafts. The primary structure consists of large steel columns that support large beams that span between them. These beams carry smaller beams (called steel joists) that are closely spaced (probably around 24-30 inches on center). A steel deck is placed over all the joists (basically the entire floor) and concrete "fill" material is poured on top of the deck. This results in a relatively light floor system that is structurally sound with little vibration and a great acoustic barrier.

No fireproofing works when it is subjected to a fire boosted by high octane jet fuel. With no fireproofing in place, the steel is weakened by the temperatures plus physical damage caused by the impact. As the steel loses capacity, it sags before collapsing. This collapse overloads the floor below, resulting in a progressive failure from the top down.