When I heard about the collapse of this building, I immediately remembered my uncle's warning, he and five of his brothers worked in this area in the 80's, transporting materials, providing crane services, etc., both in the construction of new buildings as well as in the renovation of older ones: NEVER BUY ANY OF THOSE PROPERTIES IN THAT AREA, and to this day, nearly 40 years later, no one in our family has done it, adding friends and acquaintances, more than 200 properties in Florida, none in apartment buildings with more than four floors. More than 35 years of work in the sector opened everyone's eyes very well, and it's no secret that if someone with that level of experience tells you not to worry, ask him if he has properties in the area or interests in a construction company. An honest answer to this "mystery" will affect the entire real estate sector in Florida, its main economic and political engine, because without the politicians, they would never have been able to cut as many corners as these people have.
Worst story ever, you say your genius uncle says never buy any property in this area yet after all this rumbling fail to provide a single reason why he said that.
@@onlythebest3311 Do you know how many hours you work on a construction site? hundreds, speaking to a lot of people who work in various companies throughout the Miami area, even across the state and out of state, six brothers, for a period of time ranging from 20 to 35 years without interruption, with the addition of nephews and other relatives, you learn a lot, even things you don't want to know or that are kept quiet. No genius, just common sense; it has never been a secret that building in swampy areas or near the beach is not the best idea and that the cost is enormous if done well; normally, if you don't cut corners here and there, you will be bankrupt in two or three years, and guess what is the favorite sport of the Florida construction companies with the support of unscrupulous politicians and engineers? gain a LOT of money, we don't see more damage It's simply because many of the buildings from the 1980s and 1990s, when regulations were still laxer than they are today, have already been demolished to make way for new projects, many of which are luxury apartment buildings, and there is always a difference in the quality of what you get when you have a lot of money.
9:22 Keep in mind that Manhattan’s ground is made out of solid rock. They literally have to use dynamite sometimes just to get through the Manhattan schist. Florida, on the other hand, is mostly soft reclaimed swamp land. So there is legitimate concern that those vibrations may weaken buildings nearby.
This collapse occurred the very first week I started working out of architecture school at a nyc building restoration firm. I spent the first few months inspecting parking garages because everyone was so anxious! But nyc has very strict building maintenance laws so for a building to reach this level of deterioration unnoticed is practically impossible.
What’s impossible is a building collapse where 90% of the bodies are not recovered. You’re from NYC so you’re well aware that when thousands of bodies are missing from the debris, no building collapse occurred
We heard what happened a year ago. The concrete beams were never properly sealed to protect from salt water & chlorine erosion, & when the building was inspected & cited the necessary repairs weren't done. And the city didn't condemn the building. And it all comes back to greed.
And the sagging pool deck was leveled with sand and topped with pavers several years ago. It was constantly saturated with thousands of pounds of water, which contributed to the eventual pool deck collapse that dragged the rest of the building down with it. People know why it collapsed. This is why the fake news is an enemy of the people.
As a survivor, I’m still extremely disappointed the lawyers got more compensation than we did. It’s very infuriating. It simply shows they have no sympathy or empathy for us, survivors. Ugh
I don't understand how they "don't know" yet what happened there. Almost 10 years ago, my mom and some of her colleagues were hired to review the structural integrity of that building and even then, they noted major structural issues. Parts of the building and property were already starting to sink, balconies were very clearly slanted, and there were very obvious cracks around the property.
all balconies have a slope for water to run off. otherwise pooling would cause damage like it did on the lowest slab and columns. all backyard patios if made properly have a slight slope for the same reason. But yes inspection reports detail the water damage and cracking in the garage and pool deck and columns. They just don't want to make a hasty conclusion a lot of thigs are riding on the full report after analysis to be correct.
@WholeCosmos yes, I'm aware of the slight slope that all balconies and patios should have. What my mom saw and described to me was a severe slope; one that was far more than what was required for water runoff.
@@CakeCakeCake oh really and what angle is required? The answer is you and mom don't know the building codes and neither do I. It's anecdotal unless she measured the angle and documented it. therefore irrelevant. water damage to the slab and columns was documented. Everything else is grasping at straws for an explanation. The poor guy who documented it in 2018 was sued for millions after he warned those poor souls who paid more than a special assessment fee. they paid with their lives with willful ignorance of his warning.
In South Korea, even before Itaewon, there were 2 man made disasters in the last 25 yrs that each killed hundreds of people (ferry disaster and dept. store collapse). In both, most everyone responsible, including the owners, went to jail. Here, no talk of jail time. For anyone. South Korea is also conservative and corrupt like here. But here, if you’re a big business, you can get away with literally anything.
Buildings won't last forever. You need to maintain them properly. Need to demolish them when they are not safe. That collapsed condominium was very poorly maintained. Building's design looks fine but it's probably weakened by water leaks from the pool. Some heavy HVAC equipments on the roof may have damaged the structure at some point too.
I read the Condo Board tried to pass a special assessment to make repairs that was rejected by the owners and now the owners are trying to blame the Board for not making repairs. No one wants to take responsibility for their own decisions. Repairs cost money. No one could have predicted the entire building would collapse. Very tragic.
The 'condo board' was made up of owners.. the engineer they paid said that 'if the repairs were not done the damage would expand exponentially'... that includes colapse
@@williamhaynes7089 , yes, but they have to have the written approval, in the form of a vote, of 75% of the ownership of the building, to levy an assessment that requires a loan. Unlike a cooperative, a condominium board can't just impose a huge assessment requiring financing by itself.
@@williamhaynes7089 Agreed. The board tried to get the money to make the repairs. The owners said no. The governing documents didn’t allow the board to just take out fifteen million in loans. Now the remaining owners and families of the deceased are looking for someone to blame so they are blaming the board. When it is all the owners that are to blame. Getting people to serve on the board is going to be next to impossible in Florida going forward, and it’s already very difficult to find willing and qualified board members to volunteer.
@@ProudPapaJD , as a condo owner, I know how hard it is to get good people to serve on the Board. When I think too much about it, the potential liability scares me, too, and I think, do I really want to continue as a Board member. But I love my building and just hope more owners get involved and take the trouble to inform themselves of the costs of running the place and why they are what they are.
Nobody yet knows why?! Yes we do. The foundations weren't made correctly, the pool deck was not made correctly and signs of problems were repeatedly ignored. The condo board didn't want to pay for repairs. This is what happens when you barely have any regulatory oversight on shyster developers. It's amazing this hasn't happened more often. It's just a matter of time.
@@dougc190 , As a condo owner and member of my Board myself, I DO blame the owners for not wanting to pay the special assessment to fix it. I ask you- when your own detached house needs a new roof, or its furnace dies or is on the verge of death, or you see a tree starting to grow through a wall, do you fix it no matter what the cost? Yes, you do, and it usually costs more than the owners percentage share of the collective cost of these things in a 130 unit condo building. Thing is, too many condo owner/occupants think like renters- they think of "the association" and "the Board" as entities apart from themselves. Well, when you buy into a condo building, you own a proportionate share of, and responsibility for, the common elements. The special assessment of $100,000-$200,000 depending on square footage that CTS owners were being asked to ante up to save their building was small relative to the market woth of the units, which ranged from $550K up to $1.3 M. Many of these people had spent that much on cars, or on tarting their units up with marble bathrooms and high end kitchens, yet they did not want to spend anything to correct the serious structural deficiencies that had developed over decades. I can tell that they never cast even a sidewise glance at their budget, because they just couldn't figure out why the HOA was $800 a month or more for a building that had 7 people on staff, lavish communal amenities including a gigantic marble lobby, pool, and underground garage. Where did they think the money for all that had to come from?
In as much of a tragedy as it is that this building collapsed, awarding them 1.05 billion in damages was unjustified. They shouldn’t get a dime until the cause of the collapse has been determined. Frankly, it’s obvious as to why the collapse happened. The complete LACK OF MAINTENANCE that occurred over the years by the condo owners. Since they’re the owners of the 40 year old building, it’s was THEIR responsibility to maintain it. Nobody else’s. This was a forty year old building that was screaming out for someone to pay attention. But the owners didn’t want to cough up the high cost of the repairs required to keep their building sound. That’s on them. When you buy into a multi-storey building, you better be prepared for some extremely expensive repairs. With big buildings come costly repairs, especially when next to the ocean. Once rebar starts the rust, the damage to the building will increase exponentially as that rebar expands from the rust. It will force the concrete apart, causing the building’s integrity to decrease significantly. When that concrete is already loaded at 100% of it’s designed structural capacity, then it’s inevitable that failure will occur. And that’s EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. The building was allowed to get to the point where it simply couldn’t hold itself up any longer. Who’s fault is that? The city? The owners? The builder? The new building going up next door? It’s the OWNERS’ FAULT. Nobody else’s. Their and their’s alone. Those repairs were long overdue. It’s not like they didn’t see all the building’s issues. Every time they parked their cars, they could see the deterioration all around them. This isn’t rocket science. The parking garage was falling apart. Exactly WHAT did they think was going to happen if the parking garage failed? After all, the building sits on the top of it. So if that fails, the rest of the building will too, regardless of it’s condition. Because if the building’s foundation is rotted out, the building will collapse. Just as it did.
Florida has a serious problem with building license corruption: They are allowing tall buildings without systems to prevent columns from piercieng through slabs. It runs so deep, they will do whatever they can to blame failures on maintenance and external causes. When a section of a building fails, the piercing prevention systems (mostly, beams, but at a minimum, column capitals), hold the rest of the building standing, instead of the whole thing coilapsing, as it happened in Surfside. The problem is not small... dozens of very expensive buldings are now standing with that issue. Very important and powerful people are to blame, and many others have millions invested on those deathtraps. It will not be openly accepted as construction liability.
How is it a mystery? The owners had water damage in the basement and didnt address it. They said that in the news last year? With pictures showing how the salt water got into the concrete pillars which then rotted out the rebar… then collapse… They should incarcerate the owners for the rest of their lives for being cheap bums wanting to ignore problems to save their money
You are 100% spot on and these are not poor people who neglected to do the work. They are very wealthy cheap bums just like in the other condos that I own property in we have a bunch of cheap bums who refuse to do the work that it takes to keep the property in tip top shape.
The longer necessary repairs are put off, because nobody wa to to pay for it, the more damage and the higher the cost to repair. The condo owners in this building should have insisted the repairs be made a long time ago. Before the concrete disintegrated.
@@mikemoonleight FYI - The condo wasn't owned by a 'big business'. It was owned by the people who were killed in the collapse. Those same people were too cheap to fix the building they were in. This is well documented. I realize everyone wants to believe they have no responbility for their own lot in life these days, but this is a clear cut case where the victims were victims of their own hands.
You will find the answers by inspecting other buildings built by the same company and/or built during the general time frame that this tower was constructed. Initial hypothesis tells a difficult story of building tall, heavy buildings whose foundations are in sand. Sand. The collapse of the first tower probably damaged the foundation of the second building, which fell moments later. I was hired by a construction company in 1980 that was building a condo tower on the beach in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Fortunately, my friends and I accepted employment at another site, because days later, that building collapsed, killing 9 workers.
When I heard about the collapse of this building, I immediately remembered my uncle's warning; he and five of his brothers worked in this area in the 80's, transporting materials, providing crane services, etc., both in the construction of new buildings, as well as in the renovation of older ones, NEVER BUY ANY OF THOSE PROPERTIES IN THAT AREA, and to this day almost 40 years later no one related to our family has done it.
@@williamhaynes7089 that’s hopefully why the lawyers are taking their time , to make sure they get the new rules and regulations Rock solid. Especially since a lot of buildings are that age
Vibrations isnt going to bring a building down, unless it already has serious structural damage. These buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes In bigger cities like New York, buildings are right next to each other.
the surfside owners were not just complaining about vibration but also runoff from the 87th construction. Apparently water was running off toward the Surfside pool deck that was already in a weakened condition. Water was I think the primary issue with the collapse. Though vibrations would not help already softened concrete.
NOTE: I’ve walked along many beaches in the US and most of them have condo’s on them. All of them have frontages undermined by erosion and yet people are still living in them. Disasters waiting to happen.
almost like we need national building and housing codes instead of just letting states wing it state by state because shelter is literally too important to leave to state by state regional mediocrity
@@pixiejenkins not sure any code will save us though - heard of Opal tower in Sydney? Almost brand new, started cracking, residents forced to evacuate, etc. Also, after this event in Florida, you've got to look at Australia's Gold Coast (home of shonky developers), where hundreds of high-rises (some now 50 years old) are built on a narrow strip of sand.
when this occured from what i saw and read in the news when it happened, was that there were cracks forming in the structure in the service areas. cracks that had been left untreated and had gotten pretty bad. i believe those had weakened the building drastically edit: id like to add that i do agree with the fact the nearby construction had also played a huge part. as someone one here said, Florida is sand, while Manhattan is stone
Manhattan resident: We build next to each other, what's the problem? Floridian: Your high rises are built on bedrock, ours are built on sand. It's sand all the way down. Vibrations make objects settle and not always evenly. When other high-rises settle unevenly they fall down even if they been standing for decades.
Not to mention the army detonated a bomb that shook all of Miami just days before the collapse! But no one talks about that! How do I know? Because I live around the corner from Champlain towers and felt the freaking earthquake when it happened.
So many people in these comments not understanding the work these professionals do. The NIST and the NTSB are two of the very best organizations that do what they do in the world, and might be some of the best things the US has to offer the rest of the world. The world literally looks to those two groups for building standards to prevent and avoid tragedy as well as causal investigations in situations like this, and they have made the world a safer place as a result. The NIST is as good as they come, and their report will be comprehensive, exhaustive, and final to show what happened to cause the collapse, as the event was probably multifactorial. As far as the recommendations go, their report may literally alter the building codes of a country for generations to come... waiting for a couple of years is worth it.
Good comment and yes, agreed. This 60 Minutes report fails to understand the importance of this report getting it absolutely right and taking the time to do so. However this doesn't mean that experts do not already have a good understanding of how this happened. If that engineer who has been denied access to evidence is genuinely being kept in the dark - that's a story, but they didn't pursue it.
@@VanillaMacaron551 Concur. I would like to get as much input as possible, and if it provides comfort and help to the families while waiting for the NIST report, I'm all for it. As long as we all recognize that the NIST report will be conclusive and the final word on the matter.
yeah, as an undergrad chemical engineering major(only a few classes left) these types of reports are time consuming. It's also a bit different trying to gather evidence and analyze why this disaster vs. creating a new construction building plan. additionally, some of the rescue efforts likely makes reconstructing the exact mode of failure more difficult because pieces of the building were moved from where the originally fell.
Also the weight within the apartments have increased signigicantly in many cases due to renovations. Floor to ceiling marble in bathrooms, marble and granite in kitchens and as flooring, it all adds up beyond the original design load specifications.
Comparing Manhattan buildings to buildings on Florida beaches is ridiculous. It's all rock in Manhattan and all sand, which can liquefy, on Florida beaches.
Nail on the head! There’s no bedrock here only limestone. There’s a book called “Finding Florida” that explains what happened to that building in surfside. It’s exactly what every Floridian knows to be true, this state fights tooth and nail against human comfort.😂
limestone is not the same as bedrock! …..But in Florida case first sand then Limestone ,last Bedrock ….know as the Florida platform …at one point florida was submerged under water …it might go back underwater as studies indicate. …
I've lived in Miami Beach for over 20 years moving in during the early 1990s when everything was run down and most of the hotels were boarded up. Though I've always admired how they turned this place into a glamorous international destination, I also wondered why they built it on top of such old buildings that they've branded as "Art Deco".
With the collapse of Unions and their apprenticeships, and the explosion of undocumented "gas station" laborers, expect construction failures like this to grow exponentially, in the next 30 years.
There were many problems with that building from the owners to the condo board to the design. Owners don't want to pay for a special assessment guess what the building doesn't get fixed. I've seen pictures of the inside of it and I'm pretty sure that structure was overloaded with the interior upgrades that people did to it over the years. Heck the guy at building integrity UA-cam channel calculated that the pool deck was at its maximum weight limit with nothing on it when finished. All they did was put lipstick on a pig
I can give you an update: the owners of these condos didn't want to pay for upgrades so the building fell apart and now they're suiing for $15 million each for their own negligence.. They were owners they didn't rent..
a lot of the owners were reportedly investors and not residents. They bought the property to rent it out, and building maintenance cut into their investment so they did not want to pay it. There was reportedly a big disconnect in voting for the repairs between the absentee owner investors and the actual owner residents. Yet they had the same voting rights.
Owners never want to pay for big projects and condo Boards of Directors, who of course are their fellow owners, are often terrified to impose raises in the HOA, let alone hike the HOA enough to build a sufficient reserve. And they absolutely dread informing them that an essential repair/replace of a costly major system will entail massive special assessments, because they don't want to be hated.
@@chicagonorthcoast I would imagine after the surfside collapse, that owner residents and even absentee owners that rent would be willing to pay for essential structural repairs, rather than have the building fall on them and/or having major lawsuits for them voting against major structural repairs. I also imagine local building inspectors and engineers would be more willing to put "unsafe for habitation" strictures against buildings that need major structural repairs, forcing the owners to relocate or pay for the repairs. But I could be wrong. It seems sad that if the engineers responsible for the reports on surfside had at least demanded shoring supports in the interim, the structure may not have collapsed. But based on the water content being reported on the concrete, maybe that's not true. Also, it seems telling that the support under the "exploration sample" on the pool deck that was left exposed for (according to one you tube creator) months or perhaps years, circumventing the waterproofing of the deck and support (allegedly) might have been a serious contributing factor to the failure of the support and pool deck. The work order specified the exploratory removal should have been re watersealed and re - covered, but it may not have been, based on photos long after the event. The photos may not be clear enough to tell definitively, but it didn't look like it had been. It seems there may have been many contributing factors. And I think a building with an allegedly 100% load on the columns even before occupancy is an accident waiting to happen, particularly after 40 years of stress and renovations. I hope someone looks seriously into the sister condo, because if it has the same allegedly 100% load on those columns, that should be investigated.
Shoddy construction to cut costs, changes over the years that deviated from the original plans, they made parts of the building 2 stories taller randomly at the start without adjusting weight limits to fit in more units and make more money, lots of weather and salt water issues and concrete that wasn't waterproofed, people adding heavier apartment additions like granite floors, and nobody wanting to pay for the upkeep/repairs as far as the condo board etc. It's a shame, the rent on many of these places was 20k per month. That's a lot of money to pay be crushed to death in the middle of the night. I think the heavy planter boxes leaked into the pool deck which had been flattened and prevented water drainage, and harmed support columns, and the vibration or soil disturbances from construction just on the other side of the deck triggered the weight shift/collapse.
IMO, 87 Park made deal with the architecture review board for the county the property was on to remove a public beach access road and parking for their walkway park for a quick solution to greater privacy on CTS border. That road surface removal took away any remaining water protection over the pool deck wall. What replaced the road was a trendy rocky substrate with little thought to drainage away from CTS. 87 Park buried the ugly foundation and moved on. Final straw for the multitude of other issues CTS suffered from its design flaws and abuse as it aged. Article is correct that Florida is all about profit and having it look better than the neighbors. Thing is you can't really blame 87 Park for what they did. The developers of the north, east and south Champlain Towers also made decorative parks in their plan packages to get rid of the other beach access roads.
They had several meetings through the HOA no one wanted to spend the money to fix their own unit it's their own d*** fault and they should not get any money through a law suit. If they rented perhaps but they don't rent... When they BOUGHT their condo they should have got an engineer's inspection. If the inspection did not say anything faulty then blame the inspector. If nothing was faulty then then fix your building in the interim period...
They mostly didn't pay "rent" because the occupants were condo owners. Like all other civic disasters, it took many factors coming together to produce this one. The place was under-designed, badly-built, badly maintained over time with structural problems that were steadfastly ignored by the owner-occupants over time because these owners were condo owners who, like most humans, stick their heads in the sand when confronted with huge, expensive problems in their building that will take major fixes to remediate.
Why do you say that? Because you think they are covering up? That there's another conspiracy because you think there should be simple answers? Nothing can be complicated and the investigators are up to no good. Oh, get over it!
how can they not know? The "Building integrity" channel and Jeff ostroff's channel have done a pretty good job of delineating the obvious problems. The engineering drawings indicated that the building was at 100% load, at least in spots, before forty years of weathering, pool deck construction (with heavy planters) and condo owner renovations. Also the concrete spalling and rebar weathering weakened even that well past the 100% load. And the ceiling of the parking garage (the bottom of the pool deck) showed obvious water damage and punch through of the columns. It is sort of ridiculous to me that this engineer says they don't know what caused the problem. They may not know exactly what contributed to the obvious problems that lead to the final failure - for example, it may be the adjacent construction added to the water damage of the pool deck concrete and rebar with runoff, as some residents claimed. But if the building was at 100% load 40 years ago, when the concrete and rebar was sound, its basically been a time bomb waiting to happen. Ditto for the columns which were so constructed to allow for punch through, without stabilizing on the tops of the columns. I don't get it.
Wow, for that lady to live esp being on the 9th floor! Yes, it was like a layer by layer effect when it collapsed!! God Bless those poor people that didn't know what happened to them. 😭
I think it's a bit strange to hear "grandma and grandpa" lived in CTS when we know it was a good amount of younger immigrants living or renting there. Hence the Israeli search team showing up with their gear and directing the recovery. 60 Minutes missed the mark on this part of what south Florida population is.
There are hours and hours of private investigation, **done by professionals** all over the internet. Yes, people with **credentials** to form conclusions. The understanding of exactly what happened, and the administrative reasons that contributed to it are well known and understood. The fact that a settlement has already been reached speaks volumes to this. Billions are not paid out without an understanding of cause and liability.
As a survivor, that was exactly my thoughts! Why rush through the case without gathering all the information? And now the lawyers receiving more money than us. Just reveals they don’t care at all. I’ve been dealing with so much PTSD, survivor guilts, depression, you name it, and now I barely received any settlement.
They know what caused the collapse. Florida is a strong business friendly state . Less government regulations. Capitalism rules . Now try to sue the builders , the local government or state . The state of Florida is a winner take all . The COMMENERS just do not count. The only losers will be the victims . Unless they are very rich and buy great lawyers.
@@jameshisself9324 Their wasn't enough money in the maintenance fund to cover the initial cost and as they delayed, both board and owners, it kept rising.
There's an identical building nearby that's in great condition. The difference is they kept up with maintenance and corrected issues before they became a problem. This building was never properly maintained and by the time it collapsed there were several reasons it did. And many issues going forward that could have resulted in the same ending.
Are you talking about Champlain North and Champlain East? Do a little search, because you will read that Champlain North, the twin to the fallen building that has the same design, is requiring extensive shoring up, and the similar and newer Champlain East has a lot of visible spalling and water intrusion. They are not good buildings and I have a feeling they're both going to have to be taken down at some point not far in the future.
40 Years of sea salt and chlorine from the pool to the ground floors and foundation weaken the building. The videos that surfaced after the collapse showed a lot of rust on the walls.
After watching plenty of videos on clues that were evident prior to collapse, residents took for ever to green light repairs and didnt have a funded account for major repairs.
Politicians and some people think getting rid of regulations and oversight is a good thing. Cutting thru red tape they'll say. Most people don't think about whether the building they are in will collapse. Often when they can't directly get rid of regulations they'll cut off funds, little by little until they starve them out. Without inspectors and doing inspections, setting minimum building codes and making sure contractors follow them. This building is a failure of that system that was designed to fail. Not necessarily this way, but codes and regulations obviously weren't followed end no one said anything. A smaller govt is not always the right answer. We can even say that the electric grid in Texas failed because of regulations. They refuse to be a part of the national grid because they don't want to have regulations, and look what happened last winter. People died because a politician wanted to be seen as small govt. Sadly, they'll never accept blame even tho there's plenty to go around. Don't fall for small govt argument
@ Chris: I pretty much agree and it’s good to read your comments. Building code & Regulations are often created from hindsight - learning from past mistakes. They can and do help prevent such disasters. Yet so many remain ignorant to this because of money and politics. People get too wrapped up in anti-government political think sometimes - case in point: Florida.
Perhaps it was a combination of structural failure due to not being maintained properly, construction of building next door and the fact that the building is by the ocean and is subjected to salt water deterioration and is on swamp land. Resulting in a confluence of factors together caused the collapse.
While there may be a single trigger event, the causes of building failures are mostly multifactorial - a chain of weaknesses that combine to tee the building up for the trigger event. The proverbial straw and camel.
2 weeks ago the City of Miami condemned the Port Royal Condominiums a neighboring condominium building on the same street due to cracks and structural integrity. No one talks about rising sea levels but it is projected 15-20% of Florida could be underwater in the next 20 years. Considering home loans generally are 30 year terms this poses a huge problem. Then add in the inability to get hurricane insurance...multiple insurance companies are FLEEING away from Florida making it a challengeto find insurance.
Because the sea is not rising at a rate that would affect anything. It took 6000 years to put an Indian village 30' underwater off the coast of Tampa. You do the math genius.
I’ll believe the seas are rising and we are all doomed when the politicians stop buying waterfront property in New England, Florida, Delaware and let’s not forget California.
@@Stolimel , Rich politicians and other rich folk can take the financial hit, while you and I have to be more protective of our money. The people who are beginning to cut and run from coastal areas, especially Miami-Dade, are the upper-middle-income types, who have enough money to make choices but who can't afford a huge hit. The super rich who own multiple pricey homes and often never even occupy the $20 M beach condos they buy don't care, while the poor can't afford to leave and are just stuck.
They shipped the steel out from 911 as fast as humanly possible. Considering a Steel structure never collapsed before in history . Never forget Building 7 …
The HOA was aware that the buildings were in dire repair for YEARS. The issue was the cost of the repairs. The special assessment fees for the condo owners would of been through the roof. But, some sort of action plan should have been set in place to get the ball moving to secure the structure.
I was booted out of a building in volusia co. We got our sea wall by our pool damaged. Next door took a hit. It's a 17 story building. They worried that building would come crashing down on ours. Was traffic on a1a diverted, no. Was the beach blocked, no. I understand CYA. Both structures where deemed safe. Smh. Evacuating during the storm was no easy task. Over 100 ppl was ordered out. We had no elevators. So everyone had to use the stairs. Even the handicap. Crazy.
Or at least small houses. People used to build houses with 1000 or so aquare feet, but many suburbs today won't permit anything smaller than 2000 sq ft. No wonder housing is so expensive. People forget that the famous Levittown homes, which were the models for thousands of similar inexpensive subdivisions across the U.S. in the Post WW2 era, were only 750 sq ft, with later models 1100 sq ft. People raised large families in those homes and lived there through retirement. We have gotten way too fancy in the past 40 years.
In newyork older buildings are constructed with real material and geniune people in their profession.nowadays people are full of greed they do not care.
The way those bedroom lights quickly snap on in the temporarily free-standing wing, just as the center of the building murderously melts down to the ground, only to be sinisterly, suddenly snuffed out and extinguished forever, still gives me chills.
There never was any lights turned on happen too fast there was already a light on and it got turned off by the building coming down any flash as you saw was electricity.
@@thanosbustedinyourmum You and Will are almost certainly correct about that, but the imagination going there so quickly, speaks to just how horrible this thing was.
The building had several deep cracks in it, for at least for 25 years look at old pictures of the condo, and they closed the swimming pool not long after they opened the condo.
The condo board on the issue of repairs reminds me of Comedian Jack Benny who played a miser and had an act where a robber showed up at gunpoint and said, "Your money or your life." After a bit of time without a response, the robber repeated the demand. Benny then slapped the side of he face as he always did when it came to an unexpected painful decision and responded, "Well I'm thinking."
I’m just a nuclear engineer, not a structural one, but any nuke worth their weight in safety-related SSC documentation knows a thing or two about reinforced concrete, and something ain’t sittin’ right with me and this story. Notably absent from the list of “possible causes” is anything to do with maintenance, and regular maintenance, inspections, and repairs are required for any reinforced concrete on which lives depend, ESPECIALLY in a saltwater environment. And with the amount of documentation made public showing the HOA had delayed expensive repairs year after year, I’m flummoxed by how such causes could be excluded. It’s almost like the government WANTS to give insurance companies all the room in the world to raise premiums regardless of whether there is an actual increase in risk. And why would they need to get this guy out of retirement to lead the investigation? Are there no other qualified engineers and investigators around? I mean, they mention that this guy did the investigation at the World Tra….oh wait…ahem…ok, now it’s all coming together.
Nuclear engineers impress me even more than structural engineers and those in other specialties do. I'm glad we have you and I hope more able people elect to go into nuclear engineering, because we will be needing more of them.
Yes. Smh. And family members of those who died walked away with millions. Its the survivors that lost their property and all their belongings that got tiddly-winks. Its really disgusting the way the law worked in this case.
Insurance will go up EVERYWHERE, NOT JUST FLORIDA. Most people that do carry homeowners/renters insurance, and are covered by well known insurance companies which causes a nationwide policy rate increase, not just a specific state increase in premiums.
4:44: "Among the possibilities are shoddy construction, faulty design, or bad materials." How about all three? Let's face it. This was Florida in the 1980's, with its notoriously inadequate construction codes and non-existent inspections.
The real people who are responsible for this disaster, the engineers who cut corners, the construction company, the HOA, etc., etc., etc, are all dead and gone. It angers me to know they'll never be held accountable. And it's disgusting how quickly this land sold and the plans they're making to rebuild. It's all about money.
@@designexplainedllc346 I apologize for the mistake. When the constructors decide to make "modifications", do they have to consult with new engineers to sign off on any changes?
@@taffycat93 Most building codes require Engineers to overbuild certain structural elements. There is no incentives for Engineers to cut corners since the Design plans filed are public record. It's very common for contractors to pour less concrete and include less reinforcement than plans specify. Contractors know this, especially in Hurricane prone areas like Florida. Most houses do not collapse, and when they do, it's mostly LLC sub contractors that go out of business. Usually that happens years down the line, and most home construction contractors don't stay in business for that long.
Yes. This is the problem. There are many youtube channels that spin outrages theories getting people to think a building will collapse because of a planter box or a couple trees. There is criminal liability with how this happened.
Questions like: why did the tenants of the building sign a petition aganist the recommendation of the engineer before the collapse. According to maintence personal who worked at Champane Towers, water pooling in the garage that wouldn't withdraw out properly intsead it would go down into the foudation. Maybe these buildings shouldn't be so tall. As the height of the building is also the weight of the building. It pushes the building into the ground.
The residents didn't want the engineer because they didn't want to pay the Special assessments ($15M) to fix the structural issues. And, the Board didn't plan accordingly for these issues. Ignoring it doesn't make the problems go away, it just pushes the expense on to the new buyers.
Because the "tenants", who were in fact the building's owner-occupants, didn't want to hear the truth about their building. As a condo owner-occupant and Board member myself, I can tell you what it's like to have to persuade people of the necessity of a large capital improvement such as replacing heating plant, or the necessity of even raising the HOA an increment to cover rising costs due to inflation or expected replacement or major repair of mechanical systems. They don't even want to KNOW, because they perfectly well know that it's going to cost them. Well, it's one thing when some single-family detached homeowner lets his plumbing leak or his roof cave in or a tree grow through his wall because he doesn't want to deal with a bill, because his evasion and indecisiveness won't hurt anyone but him and his family, but it's quite another when you have a whole building to deal with, whose owners prefer to pretend that the issue will somehow rectify itself if they refuse to acknowledge it.
Wait...when I was on a condo board in Illinois, we were required by law to have a certain amount of funds in our account for such issues as emergency maintenance. Or even if we hadn't been required to set money aside, it is still an essential management function. Ideally, the money to make these fixes would come out of that fund, then the residents would slowly pay it back. Or if it falls short, then the board would have to get a loan and pay back the loan. At worst, residents would pay an increased condo assessment but not "come up with thousands of dollars they don't have."
I'm a condo owner in Chicago and know that the amount you are required to have on hand doesn't begin to cover a really large capital investment, like new roofs or boilers. If you have a reserve equal to 50% of your annual budget, you are considered well-funded, yet that is not, in most associations, adequate to cover a really large project. In any case, you don't want to deplete your reserve for that project, so you use a portion, hopefully no more that 25%, or 30% at the most, as a down payment and levy a special for the rest. And as you know, specials are very painful and not well-received by the general ownership, ever.
I’m not a condo board supporter however, everybody keeps wanting to say the condo board. Do things with a condom board usually is made up of residence also and when you have $15 million. Dollars in repairs you have to do a assessment to the residence and a lot of them don’t want to pay an increase in their fees. So in a way, the residents themselves can be partially the reason behind why things were not done just my humble opinion.
You got it... in most states, it's also required to collect extra money for repair fund, so you do have to do such a big assessment. Florida now requires that.
As a condo owner and Board member myself, I can tell you that you are right. State condo laws in most states require the election of a governing Board made up of residents, who almost always serve as volunteers. We Board members make the final decisions on advice from our professional management company, which does the "heavy lifting" of collecting our HOA dues and other revenues from parking spaces, laundry machines, whatever; paying our bills, supervising our maintenance staff, bidding out repair and replace jobs, drafting our budget, arranging for the hiring of all vendors and contractors. But it always gets back to the owners themselves, who of course include the Board members. A major expenditure that requires getting a loan usually requires, in most states, the written approval in the form of vote, of 75% of the majority of owners. That is usually \very difficult to obtain, because owners will shriek and howl at even tiny hikes in the monthly HOA in order to cover ordinary inflation of costs and/or the replacements and major repairs that are inevitable, over time. Just try and get the approval when, as with the building in Surfside, your town's building inspector just stood up and told them, at a special meeting, that the building was good and safe, even though the engineering firm had just delivered a report stating quite otherwise. This is why that building had such a difficult time even getting owners to serve on the board, or stay on it.
@@chicagonorthcoast I no longer live in Florida but I understand the complexities of a multi dwelling and condo board. I’m glad you explained it so well thank you
@@williamhaynes7089, It often feels that way, but you have to tell yourself that this is your HOME, and let the complaints and criticism roll off you. You cannot take it personally, nor harbor any ill will towards the people who sling it at you. You have to put your personal feelings aside as much as possible, especially when the time comes for a major capital investment such as a new roof or boiler, or other major repair/replace.
I thought we kinda knew that the building was too heavy, the sea air corroded the concrete and rebar, and the parking garage has standing water everywhere. I thought we pretty much know what and how it happened.
Yeah but possible issues with construction (replacing that beam with something smaller meant loading issues), pool deck design at limit, poor drainage at pool deck and in garage, added weight and drainage of plantar boxes, inadequate maintenance AND weight of new marble bathrooms, non approved tiled balconies and the like, plus vibrations, plus temperature variations… all contributing. (That’s just what I recall off the top of my head). Was is the type of supporting piles? Was there something specific or at that specific site with the soil profile? Was the concrete made to standard? Where did the failure specifically start? Did the drilling right up to the retaining wall enhance the water ingress? 🪙🪙I’m finding the whole thing fascinating. I sincerely hope they come up with answers, but I don’t think it will be one overarching source of the failure. RIP to the deceased and condolences to the survivors for not even getting enough to probably pay off their loan and buy another unit. Lawyers could’ve backed off the fortune a bit since profiting off so many deaths is morally abhorrent. My two cents.
They have a pretty good idea of how the building fell...not a mystery... just hasn't been finalized in the documentation. Many engineers have done insight and analysis into this.
These “investors” from the Persian Gulf, paid $120 million for the land which is essentially the gravesite for 90+ people, and plan to make into a luxury condo??? Someone else should step up and turn this sliver of land into “Surfside Memorial Park”…
Does anyone want to explain to me how measuring the same pieces of rebar with calipers over and over again helps their investigation? Or are they just putting on a show for the cameras to look busy?
This is unacceptable. They’re covering something up. NASA can tell us what’s happening on Jupiter and why. But they don’t have an explanation. As to why this building fell in the middle of the night? What a tragedy. I have an overwhelming feeling just thinking about what these people went through. Someone has to answer for this.
"watch youtube channels "building integrity" and jeff ostroff. Very clear explanations and none of this namby pamby "it will take two more years and we still don't know" crap
They almost certainly know what's going on. But they deliberately wait until absolutely everything is certain. There is a lot of money wanting them to not find problems with building codes. So if they want to extend the quality, they need it bulletproof.
Another building a mile away was just evacuated last week for the same issues,and this will continue to happen. Every rebar and concrete building on the cost will suffer the same fate.... They deteriorate 30% faster when built near the coast... Sell while you can .
See the Building Integrity channel, which details WHY the building collapsed. As for a lot of the other questions, they will never be answered, because the high-speed flurry of legal settlements and FL passing “reform” legislation will terminate most of that, which was precisely the intended effect. The underlying problems are systemic and inherent in any CID (Common Interest Development, of which condominiums are one type), and will continue to make for the conditions that led to the Surfside collapse.
Jeff Ostroff, an architect, has said since week one, the underground car garage showed several signs of concrete damage and failures and he believes that the garage roof collapsed and it took the pool deck with it!!!
When I heard about the collapse of this building, I immediately remembered my uncle's warning, he and five of his brothers worked in this area in the 80's, transporting materials, providing crane services, etc., both in the construction of new buildings as well as in the renovation of older ones: NEVER BUY ANY OF THOSE PROPERTIES IN THAT AREA, and to this day, nearly 40 years later, no one in our family has done it, adding friends and acquaintances, more than 200 properties in Florida, none in apartment buildings with more than four floors. More than 35 years of work in the sector opened everyone's eyes very well, and it's no secret that if someone with that level of experience tells you not to worry, ask him if he has properties in the area or interests in a construction company. An honest answer to this "mystery" will affect the entire real estate sector in Florida, its main economic and political engine, because without the politicians, they would never have been able to cut as many corners as these people have.
Good comment.
And he was right. I am from Fla, we heard about this also.
Worst story ever, you say your genius uncle says never buy any property in this area yet after all this rumbling fail to provide a single reason why he said that.
@@onlythebest3311 He contributed to the hackery.
@@onlythebest3311 Do you know how many hours you work on a construction site? hundreds, speaking to a lot of people who work in various companies throughout the Miami area, even across the state and out of state, six brothers, for a period of time ranging from 20 to 35 years without interruption, with the addition of nephews and other relatives, you learn a lot, even things you don't want to know or that are kept quiet. No genius, just common sense; it has never been a secret that building in swampy areas or near the beach is not the best idea and that the cost is enormous if done well; normally, if you don't cut corners here and there, you will be bankrupt in two or three years, and guess what is the favorite sport of the Florida construction companies with the support of unscrupulous politicians and engineers? gain a LOT of money, we don't see more damage It's simply because many of the buildings from the 1980s and 1990s, when regulations were still laxer than they are today, have already been demolished to make way for new projects, many of which are luxury apartment buildings, and there is always a difference in the quality of what you get when you have a lot of money.
9:22 Keep in mind that Manhattan’s ground is made out of solid rock. They literally have to use dynamite sometimes just to get through the Manhattan schist. Florida, on the other hand, is mostly soft reclaimed swamp land. So there is legitimate concern that those vibrations may weaken buildings nearby.
That was my first thought....solid rock versus sand.... not hard to understand why buildings come down
Really wish that lady knew that when asked
Land of the sinkholes thanks to that limestone.
Yup, twin towers had to be drilled into bedrock in order to support all that weight.
Not to mention its built on sand 50 yds from the gulf..
This collapse occurred the very first week I started working out of architecture school at a nyc building restoration firm. I spent the first few months inspecting parking garages because everyone was so anxious! But nyc has very strict building maintenance laws so for a building to reach this level of deterioration unnoticed is practically impossible.
You must damn well know that that build was demolished by human hand, but the people in power will never be questioned.
What’s impossible is a building collapse where 90% of the bodies are not recovered. You’re from NYC so you’re well aware that when thousands of bodies are missing from the debris, no building collapse occurred
We heard what happened a year ago. The concrete beams were never properly sealed to protect from salt water & chlorine erosion, & when the building was inspected & cited the necessary repairs weren't done. And the city didn't condemn the building. And it all comes back to greed.
And the sagging pool deck was leveled with sand and topped with pavers several years ago. It was constantly saturated with thousands of pounds of water, which contributed to the eventual pool deck collapse that dragged the rest of the building down with it. People know why it collapsed. This is why the fake news is an enemy of the people.
If non-earthquake vibrations bring your building down, something is seriously wrong with the quality of your construction.
Lawyers receiving over 70 million dollars on the backs of those who lost loved ones or property is a real crime.
sounds like lawyers are the winners
What is a CRIME is that building inspectors didn't condemn the Surfside condo before it collapsed and killed people.
Do they work for free? Lawyers are highly paid professionals. They should not apologize because they chose a wise career! Get a life.
As a survivor, I’m still extremely disappointed the lawyers got more compensation than we did. It’s very infuriating. It simply shows they have no sympathy or empathy for us, survivors. Ugh
@@Scott-got-caught perhaps in other cases, but this incident is very sensitive and needs to focus more on the survivors and loved ones
I don't understand how they "don't know" yet what happened there. Almost 10 years ago, my mom and some of her colleagues were hired to review the structural integrity of that building and even then, they noted major structural issues. Parts of the building and property were already starting to sink, balconies were very clearly slanted, and there were very obvious cracks around the property.
all balconies have a slope for water to run off. otherwise pooling would cause damage like it did on the lowest slab and columns. all backyard patios if made properly have a slight slope for the same reason. But yes inspection reports detail the water damage and cracking in the garage and pool deck and columns. They just don't want to make a hasty conclusion a lot of thigs are riding on the full report after analysis to be correct.
@WholeCosmos yes, I'm aware of the slight slope that all balconies and patios should have. What my mom saw and described to me was a severe slope; one that was far more than what was required for water runoff.
@@CakeCakeCake oh really and what angle is required? The answer is you and mom don't know the building codes and neither do I. It's anecdotal unless she measured the angle and documented it. therefore irrelevant. water damage to the slab and columns was documented. Everything else is grasping at straws for an explanation. The poor guy who documented it in 2018 was sued for millions after he warned those poor souls who paid more than a special assessment fee. they paid with their lives with willful ignorance of his warning.
In South Korea, even before Itaewon, there were 2 man made disasters in the last 25 yrs that each killed hundreds of people (ferry disaster and dept. store collapse). In both, most everyone responsible, including the owners, went to jail. Here, no talk of jail time. For anyone. South Korea is also conservative and corrupt like here. But here, if you’re a big business, you can get away with literally anything.
It's part of the illness related to societies that value money above all else.
That’s just called American Freedom from Responsibility
Buildings won't last forever. You need to maintain them properly. Need to demolish them when they are not safe. That collapsed condominium was very poorly maintained. Building's design looks fine but it's probably weakened by water leaks from the pool. Some heavy HVAC equipments on the roof may have damaged the structure at some point too.
Because our government is corporate captured. They all protect one another.
@@walker-snow “design was fine”? All signs point to the pool slab, which was in the original design, kid. Which you conveniently left out
I read the Condo Board tried to pass a special assessment to make repairs that was rejected by the owners and now the owners are trying to blame the Board for not making repairs. No one wants to take responsibility for their own decisions. Repairs cost money. No one could have predicted the entire building would collapse. Very tragic.
The 'condo board' was made up of owners.. the engineer they paid said that 'if the repairs were not done the damage would expand exponentially'... that includes colapse
@@williamhaynes7089 , yes, but they have to have the written approval, in the form of a vote, of 75% of the ownership of the building, to levy an assessment that requires a loan. Unlike a cooperative, a condominium board can't just impose a huge assessment requiring financing by itself.
@@williamhaynes7089 Agreed. The board tried to get the money to make the repairs. The owners said no. The governing documents didn’t allow the board to just take out fifteen million in loans. Now the remaining owners and families of the deceased are looking for someone to blame so they are blaming the board. When it is all the owners that are to blame. Getting people to serve on the board is going to be next to impossible in Florida going forward, and it’s already very difficult to find willing and qualified board members to volunteer.
@@chicagonorthcoast Exactly!
@@ProudPapaJD , as a condo owner, I know how hard it is to get good people to serve on the Board. When I think too much about it, the potential liability scares me, too, and I think, do I really want to continue as a Board member. But I love my building and just hope more owners get involved and take the trouble to inform themselves of the costs of running the place and why they are what they are.
Nobody yet knows why?! Yes we do. The foundations weren't made correctly, the pool deck was not made correctly and signs of problems were repeatedly ignored. The condo board didn't want to pay for repairs. This is what happens when you barely have any regulatory oversight on shyster developers. It's amazing this hasn't happened more often. It's just a matter of time.
Agreed.
Yup. And these people who complain about vibrations are trying to shift blame or protect their views
You have to blame all the owners of that building because they didn't want to pay the special assessment fee to fix it
@@dougc190 , As a condo owner and member of my Board myself, I DO blame the owners for not wanting to pay the special assessment to fix it. I ask you- when your own detached house needs a new roof, or its furnace dies or is on the verge of death, or you see a tree starting to grow through a wall, do you fix it no matter what the cost? Yes, you do, and it usually costs more than the owners percentage share of the collective cost of these things in a 130 unit condo building. Thing is, too many condo owner/occupants think like renters- they think of "the association" and "the Board" as entities apart from themselves. Well, when you buy into a condo building, you own a proportionate share of, and responsibility for, the common elements. The special assessment of $100,000-$200,000 depending on square footage that CTS owners were being asked to ante up to save their building was small relative to the market woth of the units, which ranged from $550K up to $1.3 M. Many of these people had spent that much on cars, or on tarting their units up with marble bathrooms and high end kitchens, yet they did not want to spend anything to correct the serious structural deficiencies that had developed over decades. I can tell that they never cast even a sidewise glance at their budget, because they just couldn't figure out why the HOA was $800 a month or more for a building that had 7 people on staff, lavish communal amenities including a gigantic marble lobby, pool, and underground garage. Where did they think the money for all that had to come from?
In as much of a tragedy as it is that this building collapsed, awarding them 1.05 billion in damages was unjustified. They shouldn’t get a dime until the cause of the collapse has been determined. Frankly, it’s obvious as to why the collapse happened. The complete LACK OF MAINTENANCE that occurred over the years by the condo owners. Since they’re the owners of the 40 year old building, it’s was THEIR responsibility to maintain it. Nobody else’s. This was a forty year old building that was screaming out for someone to pay attention. But the owners didn’t want to cough up the high cost of the repairs required to keep their building sound. That’s on them. When you buy into a multi-storey building, you better be prepared for some extremely expensive repairs. With big buildings come costly repairs, especially when next to the ocean. Once rebar starts the rust, the damage to the building will increase exponentially as that rebar expands from the rust. It will force the concrete apart, causing the building’s integrity to decrease significantly. When that concrete is already loaded at 100% of it’s designed structural capacity, then it’s inevitable that failure will occur. And that’s EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. The building was allowed to get to the point where it simply couldn’t hold itself up any longer. Who’s fault is that? The city? The owners? The builder? The new building going up next door?
It’s the OWNERS’ FAULT. Nobody else’s. Their and their’s alone. Those repairs were long overdue. It’s not like they didn’t see all the building’s issues. Every time they parked their cars, they could see the deterioration all around them. This isn’t rocket science. The parking garage was falling apart. Exactly WHAT did they think was going to happen if the parking garage failed? After all, the building sits on the top of it. So if that fails, the rest of the building will too, regardless of it’s condition. Because if the building’s foundation is rotted out, the building will collapse. Just as it did.
Vibration definitely didn’t cause it. That woman complaining about new construction next to her place is simply trying to protect her view.
Florida has a serious problem with building license corruption: They are allowing tall buildings without systems to prevent columns from piercieng through slabs. It runs so deep, they will do whatever they can to blame failures on maintenance and external causes. When a section of a building fails, the piercing prevention systems (mostly, beams, but at a minimum, column capitals), hold the rest of the building standing, instead of the whole thing coilapsing, as it happened in Surfside. The problem is not small... dozens of very expensive buldings are now standing with that issue. Very important and powerful people are to blame, and many others have millions invested on those deathtraps. It will not be openly accepted as construction liability.
How is it a mystery? The owners had water damage in the basement and didnt address it. They said that in the news last year? With pictures showing how the salt water got into the concrete pillars which then rotted out the rebar… then collapse…
They should incarcerate the owners for the rest of their lives for being cheap bums wanting to ignore problems to save their money
Never heard of a basement along the coast.
You are 100% spot on and these are not poor people who neglected to do the work. They are very wealthy cheap bums just like in the other condos that I own property in we have a bunch of cheap bums who refuse to do the work that it takes to keep the property in tip top shape.
Because in America, unlike practically every democracy in the world, if you’re a big business you can literally get away with anything
The longer necessary repairs are put off, because nobody wa to to pay for it, the more damage and the higher the cost to repair.
The condo owners in this building should have insisted the repairs be made a long time ago. Before the concrete disintegrated.
@@mikemoonleight FYI - The condo wasn't owned by a 'big business'. It was owned by the people who were killed in the collapse. Those same people were too cheap to fix the building they were in. This is well documented. I realize everyone wants to believe they have no responbility for their own lot in life these days, but this is a clear cut case where the victims were victims of their own hands.
You will find the answers by inspecting other buildings built by the same company and/or built during the general time frame that this tower was constructed. Initial hypothesis tells a difficult story of building tall, heavy buildings whose foundations are in sand. Sand. The collapse of the first tower probably damaged the foundation of the second building, which fell moments later. I was hired by a construction company in 1980 that was building a condo tower on the beach in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Fortunately, my friends and I accepted employment at another site, because days later, that building collapsed, killing 9 workers.
When I heard about the collapse of this building, I immediately remembered my uncle's warning; he and five of his brothers worked in this area in the 80's, transporting materials, providing crane services, etc., both in the construction of new buildings, as well as in the renovation of older ones, NEVER BUY ANY OF THOSE PROPERTIES IN THAT AREA, and to this day almost 40 years later no one related to our family has done it.
I also thinking compare and scan the one next to the collapsed building might yield information.
it was all one building
They’re building another high-rise in the same place where 98 people lost their lives?!? What a disrespect to the families of the victims.
absolutely
Money money money
The land was purchased for 120 million. Compensation for the owners.
No matter what, there is a demand to own a piece of paradise.
insisting on building anything on ground zero was also quite disrespectful but got to have money, the greed never ends
LMFAO The lady in green just doesn't want to lose her view!
Maybe the vibrations from nearby construction are not a problem when the building does not have “major structural issues”
Then they should have moved out before collapse, or hired a structural engineer to advise them
@@williamhaynes7089 that’s hopefully why the lawyers are taking their time , to make sure they get the new rules and regulations Rock solid. Especially since a lot of buildings are that age
@@UTUBE3JC building next door settled out of court admitting no wrong doing
Vibrations isnt going to bring a building down, unless it already has serious structural damage. These buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes
In bigger cities like New York, buildings are right next to each other.
the surfside owners were not just complaining about vibration but also runoff from the 87th construction. Apparently water was running off toward the Surfside pool deck that was already in a weakened condition. Water was I think the primary issue with the collapse. Though vibrations would not help already softened concrete.
NOTE: I’ve walked along many beaches in the US and most of them have condo’s on them. All of them have frontages undermined by erosion and yet people are still living in them. Disasters waiting to happen.
Couldn’t pay me to live in one
almost like we need national building and housing codes instead of just letting states wing it state by state because shelter is literally too important to leave to state by state regional mediocrity
@@KitC916 Australia has national codes. That’s socialism though when you mention that in the US
@@pixiejenkins not sure any code will save us though - heard of Opal tower in Sydney? Almost brand new, started cracking, residents forced to evacuate, etc.
Also, after this event in Florida, you've got to look at Australia's Gold Coast (home of shonky developers), where hundreds of high-rises (some now 50 years old) are built on a narrow strip of sand.
Implo$ion.
Water is powerful and can eat through solid rock. A poorly constructed building had no chance.
when this occured from what i saw and read in the news when it happened, was that there were cracks forming in the structure in the service areas. cracks that had been left untreated and had gotten pretty bad. i believe those had weakened the building drastically
edit: id like to add that i do agree with the fact the nearby construction had also played a huge part. as someone one here said, Florida is sand, while Manhattan is stone
Manhattan resident: We build next to each other, what's the problem?
Floridian: Your high rises are built on bedrock, ours are built on sand. It's sand all the way down. Vibrations make objects settle and not always evenly. When other high-rises settle unevenly they fall down even if they been standing for decades.
When was the last time a Cat 5 hurricane hit Manhattan too, lol. Apples/oranges
Not to mention the army detonated a bomb that shook all of Miami just days before the collapse! But no one talks about that! How do I know? Because I live around the corner from Champlain towers and felt the freaking earthquake when it happened.
@@RosaX305 Damn, how strong were the vibrations from that?
So many people in these comments not understanding the work these professionals do. The NIST and the NTSB are two of the very best organizations that do what they do in the world, and might be some of the best things the US has to offer the rest of the world. The world literally looks to those two groups for building standards to prevent and avoid tragedy as well as causal investigations in situations like this, and they have made the world a safer place as a result. The NIST is as good as they come, and their report will be comprehensive, exhaustive, and final to show what happened to cause the collapse, as the event was probably multifactorial. As far as the recommendations go, their report may literally alter the building codes of a country for generations to come... waiting for a couple of years is worth it.
Good comment and yes, agreed. This 60 Minutes report fails to understand the importance of this report getting it absolutely right and taking the time to do so. However this doesn't mean that experts do not already have a good understanding of how this happened.
If that engineer who has been denied access to evidence is genuinely being kept in the dark - that's a story, but they didn't pursue it.
@@VanillaMacaron551 Concur. I would like to get as much input as possible, and if it provides comfort and help to the families while waiting for the NIST report, I'm all for it. As long as we all recognize that the NIST report will be conclusive and the final word on the matter.
yeah, as an undergrad chemical engineering major(only a few classes left) these types of reports are time consuming. It's also a bit different trying to gather evidence and analyze why this disaster vs. creating a new construction building plan. additionally, some of the rescue efforts likely makes reconstructing the exact mode of failure more difficult because pieces of the building were moved from where the originally fell.
I think we can trust the NIST report for this condo collapse as much as we can trust the NIST report for why the Twin Towers fell.
no memorial park or anything on the property where 98 people died from this. Just more luxury condos. Makes me sick.
Also the weight within the apartments have increased signigicantly in many cases due to renovations. Floor to ceiling marble in bathrooms, marble and granite in kitchens and as flooring, it all adds up beyond the original design load specifications.
that weight is negligible compared to the structure itself. whoever pointed to this is grasping at straws for any explanation. JEFF.
Comparing Manhattan buildings to buildings on Florida beaches is ridiculous. It's all rock in Manhattan and all sand, which can liquefy, on Florida beaches.
Yep. Classic case of apples and oranges.
Indeed ! Can not compare rock & sand
Nail on the head! There’s no bedrock here only limestone. There’s a book called “Finding Florida” that explains what happened to that building in surfside. It’s exactly what every Floridian knows to be true, this state fights tooth and nail against human comfort.😂
The worst 60 min. reporter since Lara Logan.
limestone is not the same as bedrock! …..But in Florida case first sand then Limestone ,last Bedrock ….know as the Florida platform …at one point florida was submerged under water …it might go back underwater as studies indicate. …
I've lived in Miami Beach for over 20 years moving in during the early 1990s when everything was run down and most of the hotels were boarded up. Though I've always admired how they turned this place into a glamorous international destination, I also wondered why they built it on top of such old buildings that they've branded as "Art Deco".
With the collapse of Unions and their apprenticeships, and the explosion of undocumented "gas station" laborers, expect construction failures like this to grow exponentially, in the next 30 years.
Building wasnt built correctly and then warning signs were ignored.
There were many problems with that building from the owners to the condo board to the design. Owners don't want to pay for a special assessment guess what the building doesn't get fixed. I've seen pictures of the inside of it and I'm pretty sure that structure was overloaded with the interior upgrades that people did to it over the years. Heck the guy at building integrity UA-cam channel calculated that the pool deck was at its maximum weight limit with nothing on it when finished. All they did was put lipstick on a pig
I can give you an update: the owners of these condos didn't want to pay for upgrades so the building fell apart and now they're suiing for $15 million each for their own negligence.. They were owners they didn't rent..
right, people don't seem to know the difference between Condos and apartments...
@@williamhaynes7089 Finally someone has some brains... It's impossible to reason with some of these people... The whole world is a lawsuit nowadays..
a lot of the owners were reportedly investors and not residents. They bought the property to rent it out, and building maintenance cut into their investment so they did not want to pay it. There was reportedly a big disconnect in voting for the repairs between the absentee owner investors and the actual owner residents. Yet they had the same voting rights.
Owners never want to pay for big projects and condo Boards of Directors, who of course are their fellow owners, are often terrified to impose raises in the HOA, let alone hike the HOA enough to build a sufficient reserve. And they absolutely dread informing them that an essential repair/replace of a costly major system will entail massive special assessments, because they don't want to be hated.
@@chicagonorthcoast I would imagine after the surfside collapse, that owner residents and even absentee owners that rent would be willing to pay for essential structural repairs, rather than have the building fall on them and/or having major lawsuits for them voting against major structural repairs. I also imagine local building inspectors and engineers would be more willing to put "unsafe for habitation" strictures against buildings that need major structural repairs, forcing the owners to relocate or pay for the repairs. But I could be wrong. It seems sad that if the engineers responsible for the reports on surfside had at least demanded shoring supports in the interim, the structure may not have collapsed. But based on the water content being reported on the concrete, maybe that's not true. Also, it seems telling that the support under the "exploration sample" on the pool deck that was left exposed for (according to one you tube creator) months or perhaps years, circumventing the waterproofing of the deck and support (allegedly) might have been a serious contributing factor to the failure of the support and pool deck. The work order specified the exploratory removal should have been re watersealed and re - covered, but it may not have been, based on photos long after the event. The photos may not be clear enough to tell definitively, but it didn't look like it had been. It seems there may have been many contributing factors. And I think a building with an allegedly 100% load on the columns even before occupancy is an accident waiting to happen, particularly after 40 years of stress and renovations. I hope someone looks seriously into the sister condo, because if it has the same allegedly 100% load on those columns, that should be investigated.
Shoddy construction to cut costs, changes over the years that deviated from the original plans, they made parts of the building 2 stories taller randomly at the start without adjusting weight limits to fit in more units and make more money, lots of weather and salt water issues and concrete that wasn't waterproofed, people adding heavier apartment additions like granite floors, and nobody wanting to pay for the upkeep/repairs as far as the condo board etc. It's a shame, the rent on many of these places was 20k per month. That's a lot of money to pay be crushed to death in the middle of the night. I think the heavy planter boxes leaked into the pool deck which had been flattened and prevented water drainage, and harmed support columns, and the vibration or soil disturbances from construction just on the other side of the deck triggered the weight shift/collapse.
The building next door has been there a few years.. there's was an inspection after it was built. They had time to move out or start repairs
IMO, 87 Park made deal with the architecture review board for the county the property was on to remove a public beach access road and parking for their walkway park for a quick solution to greater privacy on CTS border. That road surface removal took away any remaining water protection over the pool deck wall. What replaced the road was a trendy rocky substrate with little thought to drainage away from CTS. 87 Park buried the ugly foundation and moved on. Final straw for the multitude of other issues CTS suffered from its design flaws and abuse as it aged. Article is correct that Florida is all about profit and having it look better than the neighbors. Thing is you can't really blame 87 Park for what they did. The developers of the north, east and south Champlain Towers also made decorative parks in their plan packages to get rid of the other beach access roads.
They had several meetings through the HOA no one wanted to spend the money to fix their own unit it's their own d*** fault and they should not get any money through a law suit. If they rented perhaps but they don't rent... When they BOUGHT their condo they should have got an engineer's inspection. If the inspection did not say anything faulty then blame the inspector. If nothing was faulty then then fix your building in the interim period...
They mostly didn't pay "rent" because the occupants were condo owners. Like all other civic disasters, it took many factors coming together to produce this one. The place was under-designed, badly-built, badly maintained over time with structural problems that were steadfastly ignored by the owner-occupants over time because these owners were condo owners who, like most humans, stick their heads in the sand when confronted with huge, expensive problems in their building that will take major fixes to remediate.
Whoever turned a blind eye to the warning signs has blood on their hands.
They know why it fell
Why do you say that? Because you think they are covering up? That there's another conspiracy because you think there should be simple answers? Nothing can be complicated and the investigators are up to no good. Oh, get over it!
What a horrible thing to go through 😢
how can they not know? The "Building integrity" channel and Jeff ostroff's channel have done a pretty good job of delineating the obvious problems. The engineering drawings indicated that the building was at 100% load, at least in spots, before forty years of weathering, pool deck construction (with heavy planters) and condo owner renovations. Also the concrete spalling and rebar weathering weakened even that well past the 100% load. And the ceiling of the parking garage (the bottom of the pool deck) showed obvious water damage and punch through of the columns. It is sort of ridiculous to me that this engineer says they don't know what caused the problem. They may not know exactly what contributed to the obvious problems that lead to the final failure - for example, it may be the adjacent construction added to the water damage of the pool deck concrete and rebar with runoff, as some residents claimed. But if the building was at 100% load 40 years ago, when the concrete and rebar was sound, its basically been a time bomb waiting to happen. Ditto for the columns which were so constructed to allow for punch through, without stabilizing on the tops of the columns. I don't get it.
Well said…
Wow, for that lady to live esp being on the 9th floor! Yes, it was like a layer by layer effect when it collapsed!! God Bless those poor people that didn't know what happened to them. 😭
Those condos on the beach cost as much as a 3 or 4 bedroom house. Grandma and grandpa weren't moving in anyways unless they were very well off.
I think it's a bit strange to hear "grandma and grandpa" lived in CTS when we know it was a good amount of younger immigrants living or renting there. Hence the Israeli search team showing up with their gear and directing the recovery. 60 Minutes missed the mark on this part of what south Florida population is.
Corrupt condo boards, corrupt maintenance companies, selling a dream. Two types of people in Florida, criminals and victims
Most of Miami moved there from New York City by the way. lol
@@Astrobucks2 Miami Beach now has the same ethnic makeup of the South Bronx
There are hours and hours of private investigation, **done by professionals** all over the internet. Yes, people with **credentials** to form conclusions. The understanding of exactly what happened, and the administrative reasons that contributed to it are well known and understood. The fact that a settlement has already been reached speaks volumes to this. Billions are not paid out without an understanding of cause and liability.
As a survivor, that was exactly my thoughts! Why rush through the case without gathering all the information? And now the lawyers receiving more money than us. Just reveals they don’t care at all. I’ve been dealing with so much PTSD, survivor guilts, depression, you name it, and now I barely received any settlement.
@@gabenir5117 Condolences to you. It was an impossible situation for the condo owners, before the collapse and since.
@@gabenir5117 I’m so sorry. Wrapping you with spiritual hugs and love. 🙏🏼❤️🙏🏼
They know what caused the collapse. Florida is a strong business friendly state . Less government regulations. Capitalism rules . Now try to sue the builders , the local government or state . The state of Florida is a winner take all . The COMMENERS just do not count. The only losers will be the victims . Unless they are very rich and buy great lawyers.
@@jameshisself9324 Their wasn't enough money in the maintenance fund to cover the initial cost and as they delayed, both board and owners, it kept rising.
There's an identical building nearby that's in great condition. The difference is they kept up with maintenance and corrected issues before they became a problem. This building was never properly maintained and by the time it collapsed there were several reasons it did. And many issues going forward that could have resulted in the same ending.
Are you talking about Champlain North and Champlain East? Do a little search, because you will read that Champlain North, the twin to the fallen building that has the same design, is requiring extensive shoring up, and the similar and newer Champlain East has a lot of visible spalling and water intrusion. They are not good buildings and I have a feeling they're both going to have to be taken down at some point not far in the future.
Lack of maintenance to the building and unstable sandy soil on site contributed to the collapse.
In these kinds of engineering disasters, there is never just one reason it happens.
40 Years of sea salt and chlorine from the pool to the ground floors and foundation weaken the building. The videos that surfaced after the collapse showed a lot of rust on the walls.
After watching plenty of videos on clues that were evident prior to collapse, residents took for ever to green light repairs and didnt have a funded account for major repairs.
Politicians and some people think getting rid of regulations and oversight is a good thing. Cutting thru red tape they'll say. Most people don't think about whether the building they are in will collapse. Often when they can't directly get rid of regulations they'll cut off funds, little by little until they starve them out. Without inspectors and doing inspections, setting minimum building codes and making sure contractors follow them. This building is a failure of that system that was designed to fail. Not necessarily this way, but codes and regulations obviously weren't followed end no one said anything. A smaller govt is not always the right answer. We can even say that the electric grid in Texas failed because of regulations. They refuse to be a part of the national grid because they don't want to have regulations, and look what happened last winter. People died because a politician wanted to be seen as small govt. Sadly, they'll never accept blame even tho there's plenty to go around. Don't fall for small govt argument
The issue is too.much regulation. We need a balance.
@ Chris: I pretty much agree and it’s good to read your comments.
Building code & Regulations are often created from hindsight - learning from past mistakes. They can and do help prevent such disasters. Yet so many remain ignorant to this because of money and politics. People get too wrapped up in anti-government political think sometimes - case in point: Florida.
Perhaps it was a combination of structural failure due to not being maintained properly, construction of building next door and the fact that the building is by the ocean and is subjected to salt water deterioration and is on swamp land. Resulting in a confluence of factors together caused the collapse.
What a tragedy for ever everyone who died and their families, Deepest condolences to all💕💙💜🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Seems a bit shady professionals can’t get even supervised access to the material to be tested
While there may be a single trigger event, the causes of building failures are mostly multifactorial - a chain of weaknesses that combine to tee the building up for the trigger event. The proverbial straw and camel.
2 weeks ago the City of Miami condemned the Port Royal Condominiums a neighboring condominium building on the same street due to cracks and structural integrity. No one talks about rising sea levels but it is projected 15-20% of Florida could be underwater in the next 20 years. Considering home loans generally are 30 year terms this poses a huge problem. Then add in the inability to get hurricane insurance...multiple insurance companies are FLEEING away from Florida making it a challengeto find insurance.
Because the sea is not rising at a rate that would affect anything. It took 6000 years to put an Indian village 30' underwater off the coast of Tampa. You do the math genius.
I’ll believe the seas are rising and we are all doomed when the politicians stop buying waterfront property in New England, Florida, Delaware and let’s not forget California.
You are quite incorrect. 20% of florida will not be underwater in the next 20 years. Stop fearmongering.
Ocean levels are estimated to rise 3 or 4 feet within 100 years based on current trends.
@@Stolimel , Rich politicians and other rich folk can take the financial hit, while you and I have to be more protective of our money. The people who are beginning to cut and run from coastal areas, especially Miami-Dade, are the upper-middle-income types, who have enough money to make choices but who can't afford a huge hit. The super rich who own multiple pricey homes and often never even occupy the $20 M beach condos they buy don't care, while the poor can't afford to leave and are just stuck.
They shipped the steel out from 911 as fast as humanly possible. Considering a Steel structure never collapsed before in history .
Never forget Building 7 …
Looking forward to the report next year. That’s a must read engineering paper!
The HOA was aware that the buildings were in dire repair for YEARS. The issue was the cost of the repairs. The special assessment fees for the condo owners would of been through the roof. But, some sort of action plan should have been set in place to get the ball moving to secure the structure.
I was booted out of a building in volusia co. We got our sea wall by our pool damaged. Next door took a hit. It's a 17 story building. They worried that building would come crashing down on ours. Was traffic on a1a diverted, no. Was the beach blocked, no. I understand CYA. Both structures where deemed safe. Smh. Evacuating during the storm was no easy task. Over 100 ppl was ordered out. We had no elevators. So everyone had to use the stairs. Even the handicap. Crazy.
A tiny house that won’t fall on you should be sounding pretty good to these people now. Time for tiny house communities.
Or at least small houses. People used to build houses with 1000 or so aquare feet, but many suburbs today won't permit anything smaller than 2000 sq ft. No wonder housing is so expensive. People forget that the famous Levittown homes, which were the models for thousands of similar inexpensive subdivisions across the U.S. in the Post WW2 era, were only 750 sq ft, with later models 1100 sq ft. People raised large families in those homes and lived there through retirement. We have gotten way too fancy in the past 40 years.
It cost $$ to live on the ocean in Florida. Repairs are constant due to salt air
Building died a death of a thousand cuts. Shoddy construction, poor design, even worse maintenance, heavier amenities, and construction vibrations.
In newyork older buildings are constructed with real material and geniune people in their profession.nowadays people are full of greed they do not care.
The way those bedroom lights quickly snap on in the temporarily free-standing wing, just as the center of the building murderously melts down to the ground, only to be sinisterly, suddenly snuffed out and extinguished forever, still gives me chills.
This reads like a British tabloid headline - well done
It may have been electrical sparks, too, from wires being torn out of boxes.. I also thing of people waking up and having 5 seconds to go oh $h!t
There never was any lights turned on happen too fast there was already a light on and it got turned off by the building coming down any flash as you saw was electricity.
@@clintonjfox That’s what I was going for, thanks.
@@thanosbustedinyourmum You and Will are almost certainly correct about that, but the imagination going there so quickly, speaks to just how horrible this thing was.
I do believe the causes have been written about in great detail, not sure what that beginning sentence was all about.
My parents retired to a trailer park in south Texas. Florida wasn't even brought up.
The building had several deep cracks in it, for at least for 25 years look at old pictures of the condo, and they closed the swimming pool not long after they opened the condo.
The condo board on the issue of repairs reminds me of Comedian Jack Benny who played a miser and had an act where a robber showed up at gunpoint and said, "Your money or your life." After a bit of time without a response, the robber repeated the demand. Benny then slapped the side of he face as he always did when it came to an unexpected painful decision and responded, "Well I'm thinking."
Great comment! And it's the truth!
I’m just a nuclear engineer, not a structural one, but any nuke worth their weight in safety-related SSC documentation knows a thing or two about reinforced concrete, and something ain’t sittin’ right with me and this story. Notably absent from the list of “possible causes” is anything to do with maintenance, and regular maintenance, inspections, and repairs are required for any reinforced concrete on which lives depend, ESPECIALLY in a saltwater environment. And with the amount of documentation made public showing the HOA had delayed expensive repairs year after year, I’m flummoxed by how such causes could be excluded. It’s almost like the government WANTS to give insurance companies all the room in the world to raise premiums regardless of whether there is an actual increase in risk.
And why would they need to get this guy out of retirement to lead the investigation? Are there no other qualified engineers and investigators around? I mean, they mention that this guy did the investigation at the World Tra….oh wait…ahem…ok, now it’s all coming together.
Nuclear engineers impress me even more than structural engineers and those in other specialties do. I'm glad we have you and I hope more able people elect to go into nuclear engineering, because we will be needing more of them.
So, the insurance company paid $400 Million, but the judge ONLY gave the residents peanuts? smh
Yes. Smh. And family members of those who died walked away with millions. Its the survivors that lost their property and all their belongings that got tiddly-winks. Its really disgusting the way the law worked in this case.
I just remember how "" inconvenienced"" Desantis was when he had to make a small impersonal speech!
Insurance will go up EVERYWHERE, NOT JUST FLORIDA. Most people that do carry homeowners/renters insurance, and are covered by well known insurance companies which causes a nationwide policy rate increase, not just a specific state increase in premiums.
4:44: "Among the possibilities are shoddy construction, faulty design, or bad materials." How about all three? Let's face it. This was Florida in the 1980's, with its notoriously inadequate construction codes and non-existent inspections.
The real people who are responsible for this disaster, the engineers who cut corners, the construction company, the HOA, etc., etc., etc, are all dead and gone. It angers me to know they'll never be held accountable. And it's disgusting how quickly this land sold and the plans they're making to rebuild. It's all about money.
Engineers do not cut corners, it's the contactors, lack of stringent government inspectors, and HOA.
@@designexplainedllc346 I apologize for the mistake. When the constructors decide to make "modifications", do they have to consult with new engineers to sign off on any changes?
@@taffycat93 Most building codes require Engineers to overbuild certain structural elements. There is no incentives for Engineers to cut corners since the Design plans filed are public record. It's very common for contractors to pour less concrete and include less reinforcement than plans specify. Contractors know this, especially in Hurricane prone areas like Florida. Most houses do not collapse, and when they do, it's mostly LLC sub contractors that go out of business. Usually that happens years down the line, and most home construction contractors don't stay in business for that long.
No. just the owners who couldn't part with their money
Yes. This is the problem. There are many youtube channels that spin outrages theories getting people to think a building will collapse because of a planter box or a couple trees.
There is criminal liability with how this happened.
Questions like: why did the tenants of the building sign a petition aganist the recommendation of the engineer before the collapse. According to maintence personal who worked at Champane Towers, water pooling in the garage that wouldn't withdraw out properly intsead it would go down into the foudation. Maybe these buildings shouldn't be so tall. As the height of the building is also the weight of the building. It pushes the building into the ground.
The residents didn't want the engineer because they didn't want to pay the Special assessments ($15M) to fix the structural issues. And, the Board didn't plan accordingly for these issues.
Ignoring it doesn't make the problems go away, it just pushes the expense on to the new buyers.
Because the "tenants", who were in fact the building's owner-occupants, didn't want to hear the truth about their building. As a condo owner-occupant and Board member myself, I can tell you what it's like to have to persuade people of the necessity of a large capital improvement such as replacing heating plant, or the necessity of even raising the HOA an increment to cover rising costs due to inflation or expected replacement or major repair of mechanical systems. They don't even want to KNOW, because they perfectly well know that it's going to cost them. Well, it's one thing when some single-family detached homeowner lets his plumbing leak or his roof cave in or a tree grow through his wall because he doesn't want to deal with a bill, because his evasion and indecisiveness won't hurt anyone but him and his family, but it's quite another when you have a whole building to deal with, whose owners prefer to pretend that the issue will somehow rectify itself if they refuse to acknowledge it.
Wait...when I was on a condo board in Illinois, we were required by law to have a certain amount of funds in our account for such issues as emergency maintenance. Or even if we hadn't been required to set money aside, it is still an essential management function. Ideally, the money to make these fixes would come out of that fund, then the residents would slowly pay it back. Or if it falls short, then the board would have to get a loan and pay back the loan. At worst, residents would pay an increased condo assessment but not "come up with thousands of dollars they don't have."
I'm a condo owner in Chicago and know that the amount you are required to have on hand doesn't begin to cover a really large capital investment, like new roofs or boilers. If you have a reserve equal to 50% of your annual budget, you are considered well-funded, yet that is not, in most associations, adequate to cover a really large project. In any case, you don't want to deplete your reserve for that project, so you use a portion, hopefully no more that 25%, or 30% at the most, as a down payment and levy a special for the rest. And as you know, specials are very painful and not well-received by the general ownership, ever.
That’s crazy I wouldn’t be living there
I’m not a condo board supporter however, everybody keeps wanting to say the condo board. Do things with a condom board usually is made up of residence also and when you have $15 million. Dollars in repairs you have to do a assessment to the residence and a lot of them don’t want to pay an increase in their fees. So in a way, the residents themselves can be partially the reason behind why things were not done just my humble opinion.
You got it... in most states, it's also required to collect extra money for repair fund, so you do have to do such a big assessment. Florida now requires that.
As a condo owner and Board member myself, I can tell you that you are right. State condo laws in most states require the election of a governing Board made up of residents, who almost always serve as volunteers. We Board members make the final decisions on advice from our professional management company, which does the "heavy lifting" of collecting our HOA dues and other revenues from parking spaces, laundry machines, whatever; paying our bills, supervising our maintenance staff, bidding out repair and replace jobs, drafting our budget, arranging for the hiring of all vendors and contractors. But it always gets back to the owners themselves, who of course include the Board members. A major expenditure that requires getting a loan usually requires, in most states, the written approval in the form of vote, of 75% of the majority of owners. That is usually \very difficult to obtain, because owners will shriek and howl at even tiny hikes in the monthly HOA in order to cover ordinary inflation of costs and/or the replacements and major repairs that are inevitable, over time. Just try and get the approval when, as with the building in Surfside, your town's building inspector just stood up and told them, at a special meeting, that the building was good and safe, even though the engineering firm had just delivered a report stating quite otherwise. This is why that building had such a difficult time even getting owners to serve on the board, or stay on it.
@@chicagonorthcoast Being on board i bet can be a thankless job
@@chicagonorthcoast I no longer live in Florida but I understand the complexities of a multi dwelling and condo board. I’m glad you explained it so well thank you
@@williamhaynes7089, It often feels that way, but you have to tell yourself that this is your HOME, and let the complaints and criticism roll off you. You cannot take it personally, nor harbor any ill will towards the people who sling it at you. You have to put your personal feelings aside as much as possible, especially when the time comes for a major capital investment such as a new roof or boiler, or other major repair/replace.
I thought we kinda knew that the building was too heavy, the sea air corroded the concrete and rebar, and the parking garage has standing water everywhere. I thought we pretty much know what and how it happened.
Yeah but possible issues with construction (replacing that beam with something smaller meant loading issues), pool deck design at limit, poor drainage at pool deck and in garage, added weight and drainage of plantar boxes, inadequate maintenance AND weight of new marble bathrooms, non approved tiled balconies and the like, plus vibrations, plus temperature variations… all contributing. (That’s just what I recall off the top of my head). Was is the type of supporting piles? Was there something specific or at that specific site with the soil profile? Was the concrete made to standard? Where did the failure specifically start? Did the drilling right up to the retaining wall enhance the water ingress? 🪙🪙I’m finding the whole thing fascinating. I sincerely hope they come up with answers, but I don’t think it will be one overarching source of the failure. RIP to the deceased and condolences to the survivors for not even getting enough to probably pay off their loan and buy another unit. Lawyers could’ve backed off the fortune a bit since profiting off so many deaths is morally abhorrent. My two cents.
I will never live in anything past 3 floors
The pool was leaking ,eroding under the building making it soft ground. They have inspection video from months before it fell
They have a pretty good idea of how the building fell...not a mystery... just hasn't been finalized in the documentation. Many engineers have done insight and analysis into this.
Poor maintenance, no drainage plain, poor water run off..... Basic structure integrity! Problem solved! Pay me millions!
These “investors” from the Persian Gulf, paid $120 million for the land which is essentially the gravesite for 90+ people, and plan to make into a luxury condo??? Someone else should step up and turn this sliver of land into “Surfside Memorial Park”…
You sound like the right person for the job
Almost the entire world is built on the remains of civilizations lost
If you want to save the world and make a park just sacrifice your own money buy the property and donate it
Does anyone want to explain to me how measuring the same pieces of rebar with calipers over and over again helps their investigation? Or are they just putting on a show for the cameras to look busy?
Right
The lesson is clear: Never buy a condo.
Wow... Time goes by really fast and now already over a years since the incident happen
This is unacceptable. They’re covering something up. NASA can tell us what’s happening on Jupiter and why. But they don’t have an explanation. As to why this building fell in the middle of the night? What a tragedy. I have an overwhelming feeling just thinking about what these people went through. Someone has to answer for this.
"watch youtube channels "building integrity" and jeff ostroff. Very clear explanations and none of this namby pamby "it will take two more years and we still don't know" crap
Implo$ion.
They almost certainly know what's going on. But they deliberately wait until absolutely everything is certain. There is a lot of money wanting them to not find problems with building codes. So if they want to extend the quality, they need it bulletproof.
Another building a mile away was just evacuated last week for the same issues,and this will continue to happen. Every rebar and concrete building on the cost will suffer the same fate.... They deteriorate 30% faster when built near the coast... Sell while you can .
Greed is disgusting Build housing people can afford not luxury . Quit letting these foreign multi millionairs come in and ruin everything
Why are they still paying mortgage on those apartments that are not there anymore? That is ridiculous!!!
40 years from now we will finally know what happened and can finally rest easy in our collapsed condominiums.
40 or 30 yars old in Florida. Many Mahattan buildings are 90/80 years old.
OMG I cant imagine that happening! But who thinks that living off SSI in a condo in Florida nowadays lol! Saltwater over time eats away at everything!
Lol
SSI won't cover the association fees on the condo. much less a mortgage payment to go with it.
Yes, CORROSION!
Thank you for sharing.
See the Building Integrity channel, which details WHY the building collapsed. As for a lot of the other questions, they will never be answered, because the high-speed flurry of legal settlements and FL passing “reform” legislation will terminate most of that, which was precisely the intended effect. The underlying problems are systemic and inherent in any CID (Common Interest Development, of which condominiums are one type), and will continue to make for the conditions that led to the Surfside collapse.
we know why it fell .. poorly maintained second floor pool, lack of code enforcement, disinterested owners
When HOAs don't do anything. Such a tragedy.
The residents were the HOA, as they owned the place
2 years for a real answer wow
"Buildings Don't just Fall Down!!!" into a dust bowl!!
Go figure the lawyers got 70 mil 😂😂 classic US of A milking those actually affected by a tragedy
Imagine how many plumbing leaks have occurred inside the walls (not visible) leading to rot. A major contributor is mold.
The building sank during a study back in the early 90s. When a building moves the plumbing don't.
There's no unanswered questions if you'd look into it.
Never forget 🙏🏼
Jeff Ostroff, an architect, has said since week one, the underground car garage showed several signs of concrete damage and failures and he believes that the garage roof collapsed and it took the pool deck with it!!!
98 people? Damn live in the U.S and didn’t even know about this.