Surfside Condo Collapse

Ulu

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A building is not a TV, built identically on a production line in a factory, so they all come out the same.

I believe that everything here went back to failures in the initial design and construction to provide proper drainage and water protection to the structure. You can’t really tell by looking at the outside, when similar buildings have the exact problem.

I would examine & evacuate any planters where they adjoin structural building elements such as columns and beams, and examine for water damage.

From what I know of the engineering inspection report, this expensive but important procedure was never undertaken.

It appears that water from large planters on the deck above the garage were allowing drainage into the concrete columns and beams, rusting out the bars.

This caused deadly hidden damage to the concrete structure.

Check out today’s episode of Building Integrity on YouTube.
 
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Ulu

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I would move out immediately . . .
I think what they need to do is immediately inspect the other buildings & place temporary shoring where they suspect problems have occurred. Then they need to start digging out the planters and make sure that there’s no water intrusion. That’s the first and most expensive step IMO and it’s the one that the previous rehab on this building ignored.
 
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Ulu

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A pool contractor released photographs that he took in the pool equipment room two days Before the collapse. You can see that the beam which forms a rim around the top of the swimming pool is coming apart. There’s lots of evidence of water leakage on and around the electrical equipment.

Now that room is as far as it could be from the area where the building collapsed.

But neighbors said that the pool emptied suddenly. That’s what would happen if the concrete wall behind this equipment and gave way and filled the pool equipment room with swimming pool water.

It appears from the plans I saw that that water could have gone to an emergency drain. But it was far in excess of what the drain wouldn’t hold and I think the water coursed out through the parking area under the pool deck.

Anyhow, I don’t think that was what precipitated the collapse but we may never know. Health and safety officials are determined that the remaining part of the tower is moving rapidly and must be demolished before it collapses and kills people.

With a hurricane coming, in they say they don’t have time to do a controlled demolition, and they will have to wait.

So it’s possible the rest of this building may come down on its own in the storm. I don’t think there’s any way to shore it up enough to prevent this. The remaining tower Stands on columns, and it has shifted 1 foot since the day of the collapse. The rubble is also shifting, as the garage roof continues to collapse under the overburden.
 

Ulu

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I saw photos of the garage collapse and remaining pool deck today. The deck was rotten and it pancaked, the columns punching thru.

I didn’t see enough rebar sticking out of ANYTHING. It is like over 40 years it evaporated. Either it didn’t have good column ties or they were just rusted away.

The failure looks like what happens to an UNreinforced concrete structure when it fails.

The murder of this community of people was committed 40 years ago, when the concrete was poured.
 

krichardson

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The rest of the building is set to be blown up and brought down sometime tomorrow night.
 

krichardson

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Eh,update....talking head on the news just reported that the building is now down completely.
 

Ulu

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They did a pretty good job bringing it down and were able to get back to digging through in the rubble for bodies right away.

I think there’s a pretty clear consensus now that this was a matter of damage to the elevated slab from corrosion, and that it suffered a zipper failure, punching through one column after another until the falling slab crippled the columns under the main building where it was attached.
C325367F-8897-4887-B945-8F0CF1DA3D9C.jpeg

It also appears that there was not enough drainage built-in to the slab and that there is
Certainly a weak condition where the exterior elevated slab connected to the building columns.

Those columns should have been heavier, or simply been 2 separate columns, or they should have been braced up to the bottom of the adjacent floor beams. Or all 3 really.

There were also other design mistakes but they may not have been the precipitating cause.
 

Ulu

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By the way, do you see how the sagging floor is pulling columns in towards it?

When the floors of the WTC sagged from a plane crashing on to them, it pulled the columns into the floor just the same. But there was a sort of pause. Witnesses even said that it looked like a controlled demolition.

Every 2 floors, the columns were joined, thus 2 floors had to give out at first, and so there was a pause before the top of the structure turned into a big punch, that just knocked out everything below.

The concrete utility core was like a concrete tower inside the visible steel tower.

When the wreckage blew into it, it weakened, and the sagging floor pulled it loose. Many stories of the concrete core punched down immediately after the floors started to go.

Lots of people (even some very famous engineers) tried to say that the World Trade Center was a controlled demolition job and that the airplanes were just a Dodge or a distraction. They tell you to watch the videos because it looks just like a controlled demolition job.

But if you watch the videos of the Surfside Tower collapse, and then the controlled demolition of the remaining Surfside portion, you will notice that they look essentially the same. In both cases, the middle columns of the building were knocked out and it came down suddenly.

Except for one thing. Through the glass windows of Surfside, you can clearly see exploding demolition charges, as the interior columns of the building are knocked out, allowing it to fall into its own basement.

The WTC was glass windows all around, but nobody saw explosions on each level of the interior core thru the glass. So except for that it probably did look like a controlled demolition.
 

krichardson

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By the way, do you see how the sagging floor is pulling columns in towards it?

When the floors of the WTC sagged from a plane crashing on to them, it pulled the columns into the floor just the same. But there was a sort of pause. Witnesses even said that it looked like a controlled demolition.

Every 2 floors, the columns were joined, thus 2 floors had to give out at first, and so there was a pause before the top of the structure turned into a big punch, that just knocked out everything below.

The concrete utility core was like a concrete tower inside the visible steel tower.

When the wreckage blew into it, it weakened, and the sagging floor pulled it loose. Many stories of the concrete core punched down immediately after the floors started to go.

Lots of people (even some very famous engineers) tried to say that the World Trade Center was a controlled demolition job and that the airplanes were just a Dodge or a distraction. They tell you to watch the videos because it looks just like a controlled demolition job.

But if you watch the videos of the Surfside Tower collapse, and then the controlled demolition of the remaining Surfside portion, you will notice that they look essentially the same. In both cases, the middle columns of the building were knocked out and it came down suddenly.

Except for one thing. Through the glass windows of Surfside, you can clearly see exploding demolition charges, as the interior columns of the building are knocked out, allowing it to fall into its own basement.

The WTC was glass windows all around, but nobody saw explosions on each level of the interior core thru the glass. So except for that it probably did look like a controlled demolition.
Interesting stuff Ulu...
Over on another forum a guy is actually arguing that the residents should have been allowed to enter the building to retrieve personal items before it was brought down.
 
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