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Building Collapse in Miami Beach

The sudden onset happening in the middle of the night doesn't have a very hopeful outcome.

There's an anecdote about an earthquake in Los Angeles in the 30's. The net effect of it was that it severely damaged a lot of brick schoolhouses. The bright side was that it happened on a Saturday. If the schools were in session, it could have been far more impactful.
 
A man whose mother and grandmother are missing reported that his mother stated in a phone call the day before that she didn't sleep well the previous night because she heard a loud "creak" in the middle of the night.
 
Most interesting hypothesis was one in the Miami Herald from an engineer in Florida. Subsidence, and a bit of cracking, and salt water intrusion into the concrete, creating a nice environment for rebar corrosion.
 
Depending on the wording of that 3 year old inspection the owners should be held criminally liable. We excuse too many "accidents" as "shit happens" in this country.
 
berth said:
The sudden onset happening in the middle of the night doesn't have a very hopeful outcome.

There's an anecdote about an earthquake in Los Angeles in the 30's. The net effect of it was that it severely damaged a lot of brick schoolhouses. The bright side was that it happened on a Saturday. If the schools were in session, it could have been far more impactful.
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Can you imagine? You are chilling in bed in a dead sleep, suddenly you wake up falling 70-80 feet amid a terrible crash, then splat.

Brutal.

JesasaurusRex said:
Depending on the wording of that 3 year old inspection the owners should be held criminally liable. We excuse too many "accidents" as "shit happens" in this country.
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I believe these were condos so the residents were the owners. I have never not been utterly horrified by a high rise condo living arrangement. As an owner/operator of High Rise multifamily, we have pretty strict regular investigations of conditions at our sites and based on that was going on that this place, we probably would have just shut it down if we couldn't repair that damage immediately. This is done because in the event of a tragedy, they pants could be sued completely off of us.

Owner Operators of a condo complex like this do not have the same risk.
 
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berth said:
There's an anecdote about an earthquake in Los Angeles in the 30's. The net effect of it was that it severely damaged a lot of brick schoolhouses. The bright side was that it happened on a Saturday. If the schools were in session, it could have been far more impactful.
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Long_Beach_earthquake

The earthquake highlighted the need for earthquake-resistant design for structures in California. Many school buildings were damaged, with more than 230 school buildings that either were destroyed, suffered major damage, or were judged unsafe to occupy. The California State Legislature passed the Field Act on April 10, 1933, mandating that school buildings must be earthquake-resistant. If the earthquake had occurred during school hours, the death toll would have been much higher.
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Imagine that. Lost generation.
 
People were on the phone with loved ones calling to find out if there was an earthquake, and then a scream followed by a long nothing....
 
Eldritch said:
Owner Operators of a condo complex like this do not have the same risk.
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Individually, they don't. As a member of the HOA board, they do. This is why being on a shitty HOA board is not a good idea...and best to be the head spot and nothing else, if anything.

As I speculated above: I suspect this will come down to the HOA in the end. This will also have other HOA companies scrambling for liability coverage (meaning, inspections, reports, and motions to take actions). Right about now, you want to own a certified inspection firm.
 
Holeshot said:
Individually, they don't. As a member of the HOA board, they do. This is why being on a shitty HOA board is not a good idea...and best to be the head spot and nothing else, if anything.

As I speculated above: I suspect this will come down to the HOA in the end. This will also have other HOA companies scrambling for liability coverage (meaning, inspections, reports, and motions to take actions). Right about now, you want to own a certified inspection firm.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good observation.
 
Not a lawyer, but I’d expect the inspection was disclosed at a public board meeting. Short of burying the report or seriously botching the repair effort I doubt they’d be liable. I’d also expect they would be carrying some sort of professional insurance to cover BS lawsuits.

The real liability would seem to be with the city who received the report and has the power to condemn properties.
 
Holeshot said:
Individually, they don't. As a member of the HOA board, they do. This is why being on a shitty HOA board is not a good idea...and best to be the head spot and nothing else, if anything.

As I speculated above: I suspect this will come down to the HOA in the end. This will also have other HOA companies scrambling for liability coverage (meaning, inspections, reports, and motions to take actions). Right about now, you want to own a certified inspection firm.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if anybody needs a good guy for inspections, I got a couple.
 
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