. 2018 Engineering Survey Raised Concerns About Structural Damage in Florida Condo That Collapsed This Week - News Times

2018 Engineering Survey Raised Concerns About Structural Damage in Florida Condo That Collapsed This Week

By News Here - 15:08

A structural field survey report completed in October 2018 of the Champlain Towers South Condominium in Surfside, Fl. highlighted multiple concerns about visible signs of damage, nearly three years before the building partially collapsed early Thursday morning.

The structural damage highlighted in the report by Morabito Consultants, Inc. included water leaks, deterioration of painted surfaces, and “cracking and spalling” of concrete in the parking garage and on the balconies of many condo units. Spalling is when pieces of concrete flake or fracture off. Any exposure of the steel rebar used to reinforce concrete puts it at risk for rust and corrosion — especially in a humid beachside environment like this condo — further weakening the structure.

For example, the report noted that it was “fairly typical” to find spalling and cracking on the concrete slab edges of the balconies, and recommended that the balconies “be further investigated and repaired…to prevent future water penetration.”

Champlain Towers South 2018 survey report

Screenshot from October 8, 2018 Champlain Towers South Condominium Structural Field Survey Report by Morabito Consultants, Inc.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Randi Kaye reported from the scene in Surfside, where search and rescue teams are working around the clock in the hope of finding some of the more than 150 people still unaccounted for.

“It’s important to note that what they cited was sizable cracks in the concrete slab below the concrete pool,” Kaye summarized the report, “crumbling in the parking garage where rescue crews were working in the last couple of days, abundant cracking in the garage, the columns, the beams, the walls, and they also noted that previous garage repairs were failing.”

“None of this had been taken care of since that report in 2018,” Kaye continued. However, she wanted to make clear, the report “did not indicate that the building was facing imminent collapse or at risk of collapse.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told reporters that it still needed to be determined how the building had responded to the 2018 report and what repairs were made. Burkett was also calling on the condo’s sister building, Champlain Towers North, to be evacuated. It was completed about one year after the condo that collapsed, by the same developer using the same materials.

“Out of an abundance of caution,” said Blitzer, “that’s what a lot of folks are recommending.”

The New York Times reported that Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava ordered a 30-day audit of all buildings 40 years or older that are under her county’s jurisdiction. That wouldn’t include the areas within limits of cities like Surfside, but Burkett and other local authorities have been calling for investigations and it seems likely that similar orders may soon come.

Watch the video above, via CNN.

The post 2018 Engineering Survey Raised Concerns About Structural Damage in Florida Condo That Collapsed This Week first appeared on Mediaite.

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