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Building Collapse in Miami Beach

That video, damn, couldn't have dropped it cleaner with explosives. I suspect 50 may be a low estimate. What a terrible way to go.
 
Cue the 911 conspiracy theorists and explosives.

N4teTheGreat said:
That video, damn, couldn't have dropped it cleaner with explosives. I suspect 50 may be a low estimate. What a terrible way to go.
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I'm not sure. That happens so fast, and with such impact that I imagine for most people it was about 1-3 seconds of huh/nothing.
 
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SEC archives in the basement.

I don’t see any other explanation.

Half a century+ of building in Miami can’t be wrong. (Btw why they call it Miami? Feels like it should be called “the beach in front of Miami or the peninsula in front ..”)
 
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N4teTheGreat said:
That video, damn, couldn't have dropped it cleaner with explosives. I suspect 50 may be a low estimate. What a terrible way to go.
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Apparently these were not all units occupied all year round and some people were using them as seasonal residences. 51 people still missing last I heard.
 
I read comments from a resident saying they’ve been complaining about ongoing leaks / water damage for years. Maybe not the foundation but the interior “skeleton” was compromised and finally failed.

As a former Miami resident I’m both shocked and expecting revelations of shoddy inspections and/or construction. At least this is the “off” season and hopefully the building was sparsely occupied. What a horror.
 
Eldritch said:
Yeah, this is some brutal shot right here. 50 is a lot.
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Props to CA building codes et al.

We lost "only" 60 people in the Northridge quake, most of them in a single, bad building.

64 in the 89 quake, most of those on the freeway.
 
From the Miami Herald:
County inspectors were reviewing the 40-year-old building, Ciraldo said. According to the Miami-Dade County building code, all residential buildings are required to undergo a re-certification process when they hit 40 years. The process includes inspections to ensure the building is habitable and safe.​

There was some speculation on a TV news site that the collapsed building had been undermined by construction of the building immediately to the south (the one with two pools in Google Maps). The new building, just across the city limits in Miami Beach, was completed in 2019. Since then, the old building has seen some cracks in its underground garage.

There was a similar problem recently in Newport Beach. On the peninsula (also sand) the much-loved 70-year-old Crab Cooker restaurant ("seafood served on paper plates & funky charm" sez Google--I usually order the grilled salmon) had to be closed in 2018 because construction of a new building next door had undermined its foundation. It is being rebuilt from the ground up but is still a few months away from reopening. ISTR that a nice settlement helped save it.
 
Designed obsolescence. It hit the predetermined 40 year life of the building. Now it's in self destruct mode.

HappyHighwayman said:
Can you imagine being in the non-collapsed part??
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I'd GTFO quick like.
 
Piers. Possibly damaged/ undermined. Building on FL sand isn't the issue when done correctly. 80's era buildings are always suspect. A big boom in FL in coastal condos led to shoddy projects and shitty concrete. Our unit on the East coast (under contract now) just had a $45K/ unit assessment for concrete work (cracks). I'm not sure how this will impact the current buyer's financing.

I suspect the HOA (common area owners) did not keep up with maintenance / assessments, etc. This one's gonna fall on them.

I would say FL needs to update their certification time periods. 40 years seems excessive given the amount of work our building needed. move to a 20 year partial certification.

Some good reading for anyone interested in the concrete issues/ construction of FL. FWIW, the FL contractors test has lots of knowledge testing for building on sand/ etc.

https://sofl.cooperatornews.com/article/what-lies-beneath/full
 
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We need to ask Carl Hiaasen what he thinks
http://www.carlhiaasen.com

He has been commenting on Florida development for years. In a very humorous way.
 
^ The amount of big construction projects on barrier islands is crazy. A guy I grew up wrth works for Penn-Jersey. It's a challenge.
 
what if a building like that fails certification? i'm sure it depends what caused the failure but if it had caught the magnitude of this building's problem i suspect they'd be so costly to correct that the vaule of the building would be eclipsed.... much like the leaning tower of SF GAJ mentioned. who foots that bill

given that concrete has been mentioned as a known issue frfom that era, i'm going to guess that rusted rebar expanded and fatally cracked a bunch of big structural elements and a cascading failure resulted.

HappyHighwayman said:
Can you imagine being in the non-collapsed part??
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that is a wild scenario. attempting to exit through the emergency exits/stairs might well lead to a dead end and THEN the rest of the building falls on you. staying put as close to the exterior and hoping a bigass ladder can reach you before it falls?
 
Not sure what to guess Auntie except one thing: we'll likely read soon that the failure points were obvious and in open view. The HOA's DD, intent and overall actions are gonna be front and center. Or rather, they should be.

I'm assuming this wasn't rental units but a PUD project.
 
This is horrible. :rip and condolences.

A lot of people affected.

The video is shocking.. :(

Really jumping on developers, contractors, the City etc is way to early to do. It is 40 years old and codes change and environmentally things change. Construction is a managed science and is not black and white.

Damn this sucks.
 
Palm Beach and coastal Florida in general has had a massive real estate boom.

One wonders whether the "cause" of this disaster will be a massive hit on real estate property values, if it's subsidence/rising sea level related.
 
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