Half an apartment building collapsed in Miami last night.

This reminds me too much of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. 
 

I worked in the Dominican Republic on the Haitian border in the early 90's. When the earthquake happened, I was in shock. Early death tolls were reporting hundreds dead. At one point I said to a friend, "It won't be hundreds. 50,000 people are gonna die."  He was angry with me for being pessimistic. I wish I was wrong.
 

We never knew it was an earthquake zone. No one was building for earthquakes. We were building for hurricanes (completely different forces). 
 

The buildings pancaked just like that security footage. 
 

BTW, the way to bring down a building like that is not usually to compromise the footings. There are a lot of redundancies in the soil and footing engineering. The way to bring down a building like that is to use the building to destroy itself. Leaks and settling up high can expose structural steel tension members to deterioration. When a wall or floor system fails several stories down from the top, the weight above it can come down rapidly and exceed the capabilities of the floors below.
 

The way to bring down a building like that is to use the weight of the top several stories to pancake everything below. That's how controlled collapses are engineered. That's how the World Trade Center was destroyed. 
 

It's heartbreaking. 

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

It's fascinating to me from a "how'd that happen" standpoint but saddened that people have died. 

MadScientistMatt said:

Although they say it's too early to draw conclusions, the building appears to have been sinking since the '90s.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/06/24/building-collapse-miami-structure-had-been-sinking-into-earth/7778631002/

That's not technically an accurate statement.

The building appeared to be sinking DURING the 1990's.  The data was collected between 1993 and 1999.   No data was collected since then, so it's not possible to determine if it has been sinking since then.  It could have continued at a similar rate, or faster, or slower, or completely stopped.  No further data was collected. 

And the data was from a flood study, not an engineering report specific to the building.

The journalist who wrote that got caught up a little in the drama.

Another example of history of failure in this

From a 2018 engineering review

My bet would be on years of concrete spalling (from cracks and water intrusion plus the salty air).. leading to rebar corrosion. It swells when it corrodes, popping off more of the protective cover concrete. Without maintenance it leads to even more spalling, more salty air and water in the structural beams, slabs, shear walls - and eventually that rebar is simply gone and the structure becomes dead weight.

Not sure about this building's exterior walls but much of south Florida is concrete block and stucco construction. Crack prone and leaky without maintenance. If the condo association doesn't budget for repairs, this happens. Not usually this extreme but hopefully this is a wake up call.

Even the most hardy building won't last forever. Buildings that are poorly  maintained (or ignored) will fall down.

If you own a house, it is no different. Plan to spend 3-4% of the value every year on maintenance and updates. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I agree. 

OHSCrifle said:

Not sure about this building's exterior walls but much of south Florida is concrete block and stucco construction. Crack prone and leaky without maintenance. If the condo association doesn't budget for repairs, this happens. Not usually this extreme but hopefully this is a wake up call.

Sounds like individual condo owners were on the hook for $80k-330k with payments expected to begin in a few days 

In reply to STM317 :

On the hook?

They own it. 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to STM317 :

On the hook?

They own it. 

Yep!  That's how condos work.

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to STM317 :

On the hook?

They own it. 

Well, condo associations are supposed to budget for this kind of thing and set aside the money to pay for repairs out of monthly dues.  Throwing 6-figure assessments at the owners means they screwed up their planning.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Correct. 
 

...and the association works for the owners. They are their staff. 
 

Owners still own the building. AND it's flaws. AND the responsibility. AND the repair bills. 

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Semantics aside, my point was that the building was in disrepair after being neglected. You don't get $9 million repair bills if you're doing routine maintenance and proper planning. Most people can't easily afford $80k-300k bills, even if they're financed.

It sound like pretty typical condo financial planning to me.

"Don't worry, your dues pay for all repairs"

"We need new roofs and will need to charge a special assessment"

uhm.... yeah.

I've been hearing about this for several days but I've been too busy to finally look into it until now.  I was expecting some small condos or something, so my mind was blown when I saw this gigantic building reduced to rubble.  It breaks my heart to read about all the lives lost.

In reply to STM317 :

This is not a semantics argument. It's an honest attempt to understand what the heck you are talking about. 
 

It sounds like you are placing responsibility for the disrepair and eventual tragedy on the condo association. This is inaccurate. 
 

Yes. Maintenance was overlooked, and it likely caused a tragedy.  This was the responsibility of the OWNERS. 
 

If the owners have charged someone to care for the upkeep (condo association, management company, whatever), they are still ultimately responsibility. 
 

You're right... as a minimum the repairs should have been started 3 years ago when they were identified. The OWNERS should have initiated this, and required the management company (or whoever) to get started. 
 

It's completely irrelevant how much it costs. The owners own the problem, and did not handle it. Now people have died. 
 

It's not an apartment. There is no "big bad wolf" owner who is screwing the tenants. There is a group of owners who collectively failed their responsibility (even if the failure was because they couldn't afford the repairs)

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

It's not an apartment. There is no "big bad wolf" owner who is screwing the tenants. There is a group of owners who collectively failed their responsibility (even if the failure was because they couldn't afford the repairs)

The owners have the responsibility to elect a board and to abide by the board's decisions.  The board has the responsibility to hire a management company, and that management company has the expertise (or hires the expertise) to know what the necessary maintenance work is, how much it's going to cost, and to provide that information back to the board so that they can plan and set dues accordingly.

If there's a 6-figure special assessment then the failing could have happened anywhere along the chain -- maybe the management company was inept and didn't provide the right info, maybe the board didn't like the recommendations and didn't pass enough dues increases, could be a bunch of things.

Random condo owners are not expected to have the engineering expertise to know how to properly maintain a 15-story concrete high-rise.

I scanned through the engineer's report.  I'm reading through more thoroughly to make sure I'm not missing anything.  Provided I'm not missing anything, it is... incredibly damning towards the lack of maintenance but also towards the original engineers that designed it, anyone that approved it, and potentially the builders.

The pool deck on top of the underground parking roof had no drainage built in.  This led to water (with salt) seeping through the concrete of the pool deck to hang out on top of the parking garage roof.  Attacking the rebar I'm sure, but additionally the waterproof membrane eventually failed and the water started to flow through the entire structure.  Cracks started to form and were sealed, but that didn't do E36 M3 for the water coming from the pool.

Apparently at one point it was so bad that calcium was washing from the concrete and started to eat the paint from people's cars in the underground parking lot.  That's... not good.  Not good at all.

It'd be interesting to know if condo buyers would get an inspection report of the whole structure, not just their unit, when they were buying?

If I bought a condo then that structure failed in some way, even if not directly associated with my unit, and people were injured, I'd be pissed that my inspector didn't tell that the structure looked unsafe. 

To my knowledge however, that's pretty rare. My HOA, for example, doesn't provide me with a report saying that the property we own and pay to maintain might be a hazard. I'd have to do that due diligence on my own prior to buying. 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to STM317 :

This is not a semantics argument. It's an honest attempt to understand what the heck you are talking about. 
 

It sounds like you are placing responsibility for the disrepair and eventual tragedy on the condo association. This is inaccurate. 
 

Yes. Maintenance was overlooked, and it likely caused a tragedy.  This was the responsibility of the OWNERS. 
 

If the owners have charged someone to care for the upkeep (condo association, management company, whatever), they are still ultimately responsibility. 
 

You're right... as a minimum the repairs should have been started 3 years ago when they were identified. The OWNERS should have initiated this, and required the management company (or whoever) to get started. 
 

It's completely irrelevant how much it costs. The owners own the problem, and did not handle it. Now people have died. 
 

It's not an apartment. There is no "big bad wolf" owner who is screwing the tenants. There is a group of owners who collectively failed their responsibility (even if the failure was because they couldn't afford the repairs)

I already told you my point as concisely as I could. I was trying to present new, factual information. There's no larger, more subtle point that I'm trying to make really. I'm not sure why you keep reading more into it. Maybe it's because I used the phrase "on the hook for" in my initial post? But that's synonymous with "responsible for" :

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/on%20the%20hook%20for

So we both agree that the owners (whomever they are) were ultimately responsible for the upkeep, and that said upkeep wasn't happening (for whatever reason). But I think other posters have valid points about how much an individual should be expected to know about maintaining a large condo building, and how they likely selected people to make those decisions on their behalf. They kicked the can down the road as long as they could. It ended up being too long and people died as a result. It seems like you're just looking to argue about minor differences in our definitions of wording, which is actually semantics.

The concept of a condominium has always frightened me, financial, maintenance, neighbor, all sound bad.  This hasn't done anything to lessen those fears.

This particular situation is third world stuff.  This is why we have to put up with inspectors here.

You can, as an individual, sue an entity that you are also a part of. So basically, as crazy as it sounds, you can sue yourself. 

The City also requires a Certificate of Occupancy and they do have the right to look at an engineering report, see something bad, and order everybody to move out. So there is responsibility there as well. Lots of people and entities to sue with very few deep pockets anywhere you look. Investment groups that owned multiple units in the complex may be more solvent than a retired owner of one unit who actually died in the collapse. Yes, there are individuals who died in the collapse who are condo owners who could be both victims and defendants in a lawsuit. What a clusterberk. A legal perfect storm that will take years to sort out, if they ever can. 

Morbid thought.  With more than 140 people "missing" in 90 degree heat.....things are going to start smelling really rough soon.  That's something like 24,000 lbs of decomposing meat.   It's gonna be bad.

In reply to KyAllroad :

Maybe.  They're basically packed underground right now, which is a great insulator.  If you're in the top 5-10 feet you'll probably start getting smelly pretty quick.

One thing I said to my wife when I saw my first tv report on this building is that I don't think this is luxury highrise.  At best, it is a formerly luxury highrise.  I think it is now the residence of "average joes."  Maybe not quite a slum but certainly filled with people who are "price conscience" and willing to "neglect" some maint.  

It might also be a haven for many "owner-rentals" owned by the type of owner who votes down every intention to increase the monthly assoc fee.  

In reply to John Welsh :

I found a report that said prices on units started at about $600K, and that the median  household income was $69,000.   Not sure how that works...

Also saw a report that 45% of the residents were Latino.