Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-miami-area-condo-collapse/2021/06/27/1010710735/surfside-official-told-residents-their-building-was-safe-despite-engineers-warni

by cratermoon • 5 years ago

46 74 5 years ago

npr.org

handmodel• 5 years ago

I have no idea how these things work - so I'd really like some data on what percent of reports come back with similar warnings?

Was this like the only building in the city to have such a bad report?

Or do a sizable amount of buildings get warnings like this?

WrtCdEvrydy• 5 years ago

Public records requests might get us this first info.

It's probably not the only one to get such a report.

I'm sure those have already been filed with the state if they exist, we'll see a fancy visualization from a major newspaper.

xwdv• 5 years ago

A lot of buildings have similar warnings but since they don’t collapse typically they will be ignored.

The millennium tower in SF for instance, has been sinking and tilting for years, could probably just suddenly collapse one day not unlike this building in Surfside. The carnage would be immense though, as it is a massive building.

At the end of the day, if you want full peace of mind you need to live in your own detached home and be aware of your own buildings issues and correct them.

anm89• 5 years ago

This feels like "the front fell off".

Why did this building collapse?

Well, typically, they don't collapse.

MattGaiser8• 5 years ago

Does anyone have a copy of the report?

KyleBrandt• 5 years ago

https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/docs/default-source/default...

MattGaiser8• 5 years ago

Thank you.

cm20122• 5 years ago

I can see why the condo didn't jump on this. There's not a lot of urgency on the repairs in the letter, and certainly no warning of "do this or the structure will collapse".

jfim• 5 years ago

It's interesting that the report begins by mentioning water infiltration issues in some units and that the part about structural damage only starts on page seven. I wonder if that's usual for this kind of report to put the major expensive structural repairs at the end.

diego3• 5 years ago

I'm sure every day in the US there are many, many reports of structures with damage that needs to be fixed immediately (my house was one of them). Almost all of them don't collapse. Obviously there is a problem with the credibility of the reports because of conflicting incentives. Inspectors are usually from construction companies who want to get work, so they will always find something wrong with a building.

Edit: I don't understand the downvotes. Care to explain where you disagree? If thousands of daily reports warn of damage that must be fixed immediately and most are of no consequences (obviously) then the problem is that the reports don't accurately reflect the severity of the damage and the consequences of ignoring it.

marcinzm2• 5 years ago

This was an independent report done on behalf of the condominium by an engineering firm they chose to do the report.

diego3• 5 years ago

That does not contradict at all what I said. Why the downvote? Also, have you read the report?

BobbyJo2• 5 years ago

That could be a bad assumption. In some circumstances, inspectors with ties to construction companies may have incentives to add to the sales funnel, but I believe, anecdotally, that inspection companies tend to have no ties with construction companies to avoid the optics of exactly what you are describing.

Anyone that's ever gone to a mechanic knows getting inspection come from the place that's supposed to do the work is a crap shoot.

R0b0t1• 5 years ago

While I understand your concern your viewpoint is naive. Civil engineering is a relatively close knit field (as are many fields). Possibility for kickbacks is definitely there.

Something that has really put me off of license requirements is the relish that I have seen inspectors take in telling people they're going to need tens of thousands in renovations to bring a home up to code. Some of these items are things like "window sill does not go far enough inside."

themarkn• 5 years ago

I didn’t downvote, but … this is just some claims and assertions with no reason to believe them. It’s fine that you think these things I guess, but it’s not a useful comment cause it’s just speculation and frankly it sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder about previous experiences with inspectors. Are there really “thousand of daily reports” like this, or is that just a feeling you have? Is the threshold of “urgently fix this for safety reasons” too low due to bad incentives? I don’t know, and though you think that, you haven’t backed it up so the comment is low quality and the downvotes are helpful imo.

Orou• 5 years ago

You could just as easily argue that the owners of the building must be at fault because they have a financial incentive not to repair structural damage for as long as possible.

We can also look at this from the lens of outcomes if we lean too far one way or the other with our approach to safety standards - too strict, and we allocate money poorly. Too lax, and people die.

ternaryoperator• 5 years ago

I didn't downvote you, but I'm pretty sure it's this sentence that got you the downvotes:

Obviously there is a problem with the credibility of the reports because of conflicting incentives. Inspectors are usually from construction companies who want to get work, so they will always find something wrong with a building.

Responding for myself: I have read many such reports, met inspectors, and never ever had the perception which you label an "obvious problem." In my experience, HN doesn't take well to aspersions cast without supporting evidence, much less unsubstantiated aspersions qualified as "obvious."

Hope that helps.

megablast• 5 years ago

I guarantee you, all houses and alertments will Eventually collapse.

jonahx3• 5 years ago

Your premise:

If thousands of daily reports warn of damage that must be fixed immediately and most are of no consequences (obviously)

is correct, but your conclusion:

then the problem is that the reports don't accurately reflect the severity of the damage and the consequences of ignoring it.

does not follow. To put this in probabilistic terms, you need to consider the expected value of the consequences, not just the probability.

Here one of the terms in that equation is the negative cost of killing 150 people. That cost is so high that even a fractional percent chance of building collapse means that the recommendation to fix immediately is credible, correct, and does accurately reflect the consequences of ignoring it.

anonuser1234565• 5 years ago

Having read the report, I am stopping my monthly contributions to NPR.

This is straight up quote mining as far as I'm concerned. Nothing in the report would lead me to believe the structure was in imminent danger if I were a resident / board member / inspector etc.

This is trash journalism.

Edit: I would like to note the following for people following this story:

The report author has stated:

“among other things, our report detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete, which required repairs to ensure the safety of the residents and the public.” [1]

However, such language about 'safety of the residents' is not present in his report. It has further been reported that the report author did not make such disclosures to residents at a condo board meeting.

"Not once did Morabito share with us any sense of urgency, at least not the residents," Alvarez said, who lived on the 10th floor. "He never said the building was falling apart. He said the repairs were to bring the building up to today's standards of beauty." [2]

1. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/surfside-condos-neighbors-...

2. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/surfside-official-was-sent...

cryptoz• 5 years ago

As an uninformed outsider, from the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't consider any coastal Miami property to be 'safe' regardless of any reports or ratings.

The whole area is sinking, quite quickly overall. It's just common sense to disregard the results of any report deeming any building in the area 'safe', when the local government has been religiously denying that climate change even exists at all, and the insurance companies and report writers all have a short-term incentive to pretend nothing is wrong.

I have not read the report. But I also don't need the report to know that no building in the area is safe enough for me to want to live there.

cm20122• 5 years ago

Agreed. That report was absolutely not a call to urgent emergency action. The closest is a warning that the building was built wrong and will eventually need to be fixed, 2.5 pages in.

mdoms3• 5 years ago

So you'd be comfortable to live in a high rise building for which an independent engineering report contained the following text?

The joint sealant was observed to be beyond its useful life and are in need of complete replacement. However, the waterproofing below the Pool Deck & Entrance Drive as well as all of the planter waterproofing is beyond its useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replaced. The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.

Edit - this is text from the actual report - not sure why the downvotes.

flexie• 5 years ago

It doesn't scream "Get Out", does it?

When I read those sentences as a layman, they don't tell me the building may collapse.

ARandomerDude2• 5 years ago

That statement is buried on page 7 of the report, no bold text. Yet, above it on page 6 a reminder to follow OSHA-approved window washing techniques is in bold.

Given the context and formatting, this warning seems more like a pro-forma CYA than anything else.

epistasis• 5 years ago

I didn't downvote you, but my guess is that people, like me, don't find that block of text that damning. The text talks about damage to the slab. It does not connect slab damage to damage that could risk the entire building.

If there is risk that a component failure leads to systematic failure, I would expect that a report would delineate that risk.

tenken• 5 years ago

But the pool and deck aren't within/under the residential units, so I'm not sure why that text would be so alarming.

It may be equally likely the next lot underground garage construction shifted the ground near the condo and caused it's collapse.

asdfasgasdgasdg• 5 years ago

It's hard for me to know because I don't know what the pool deck and entrance drive supports. But I do think rushing to proclaim possible causes is not very helpful, since that information is not actionable. No harm will be done by waiting until we have higher quality information.

Digory• 5 years ago

From pictures, the pool deck seems to have survived the collapse; it wasn't under the towers.[0]

I wouldn't expect this paragraph to have anything to do with a tower collapsing. Pools-in-the-air (over a garage) are notoriously leaky. I read this section to say "the pool might leak if the bottom lacks structural integrity."

In no way would I think "the pool deck is holding up the towers next door."

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2021/06/24/florid...

icegreentea2• 5 years ago

The phrasing from the report:

The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.

I agree that it doesn't say "it'll fall apart right this moment" (and well... it did take like 2 more years), but I would wonder why anyone would receive a report with the above phrasing and not seek clarification.

That all being said, we don't know if this specific thing was meaningfully involved in the collapse.

MattGaiser8• 5 years ago

I want to know if an analytical monotone is typical for these reports. Would a report like this be expected to emphasize urgency or would the reader be assumed to know that "major structural damage" means urgent?

If I were writing a report on a piece of software for my boss and I found unsanitized inputs to an SQL database, I wouldn't highlight that any more than anything else I found as he would know that was severe.

yalogin• 5 years ago

The good thing about NPR is, you can ask for clarification and they will provide it for you, if you are so inclined, and they will correct it if they are wrong.

mshroyer• 5 years ago

The Washington Post's reporting seems to back you up:

Kilsheimer said he didn’t believe the damage highlighted in the 2018 report could have led to the collapse of the building. “Nothing in it raised a red flag,” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/condo-collapse-sunda...

croes• 5 years ago

Because it wasn't urgent at the time if the report, but the report is from 2018, more than 3 years ago.

cratermoon• 5 years ago

Everyone is suddenly an expert on structural engineering and thinks that NPR should have one write their news, too.

dgeiser13• 5 years ago

Way to take a stand "anonuser123456"

vanusa• 5 years ago

However, such language about 'safety of the residents' is not present in his report.

The NPR article was just simplifying. True, the original report didn't use those exact 3 words - but what it did say:

Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.

Is quite damning, and essentially in line with the simplified version given in the NPR article. And in any case directly at odds by the town's building official:

"Structural engineer report was reviewed by Mr. Prieto. It appears the building is in very good shape."

Which may explain why Mr Prieto is "no longer employed by Surfside".

lxe• 5 years ago

Looks like the flat waterproofing was only applicable to the pool deck slab according to the report... is NPR's interpretation misleading here?

mdoms3• 5 years ago

The report was issued in 2018 and warned that without expensive remediation the structural damage would expand exponentially. It may have started in the pool deck.

phnofive• 5 years ago

Someone correct me here - the PE report identified multiple structural(?) concerns with the concrete in the parking garage, and this is conflated as evidence that the inspector knew the residential building was unsafe? Are they not separate structures? Did the garage collapse as well?

The report makes clear that the integrity of the balconies on the residential structure couldn't be verified due to additional flooring materials installed by condo owners.

robocat• 5 years ago

Here's the report: https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/docs/default-source/default...

Page 7 talks about the parking garage: "Abundant cracking and spalling of varying degrees was observed concrete columns, beams, and walls. Several sizeable spalls were noted in both the topside of the entrance drive ramp underside of the pool / entrance drive / planter slabs, included instances with exposed, deteriorating rebar Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion."

Page 8 has relevant photos.

The NPR article seems to focus on the deck slabs, but they are not particularly load-bearing so are unlikely to be the cause of the building to collapse. Edit: I guess it is possible the failure of a deck slab could collapse the columns inwards, but my guess is that the columns failed (bending or collapsing).

Spalling on columns is a problem, especially if it is due to the column starting to fail.

Disclaimer: I am not a structural engineer.

nielsbot2• 5 years ago

OMG why is this not searchable text?! (Instead of pictures of the report's pages)

cagey• 5 years ago

On the same site there is a file "email-related-2018-structural-field-survey-report.pdf" which contains/embeds the same report in searchable format, and on page 18 includes a table "ENGINEER'S ESTIMATE OF THE PROBABLE CONSTRUCTION COST" whose bottom line is

TOTAL SUMMARY OF REMEDIATION PROBABLE CONSTRUCTION COST $9,128,433.60

aurizon2• 5 years ago

The owners were tax evaders and bribers. Truth had no place in their vocabulary. They are dead and gone, current owners have to cope with this shitstorm A concrete slab, with water penetrated rebar will progressively fail in an exponential manner because rebar oxidizes = irrestible expansion and progressive expansion of the corroded area. Concrete and steel in these situations turn to dust and gravel with zero residual strength. If the other building has a pool in the same relative position it needs inspection ASAP. If no pool, they may be OK as that mechanism of failure would be absent. That said, the owners were such scumbags that other structural shortcuts may be hidden and will need to be dealt with

pas• 5 years ago

How do we know they were bribers and tax evaders? Who were the owners exactly?

aurizon2• 5 years ago

They died a few years ago, and they were charged and settled. Root among these... https://www.google.com/search?q=florida+collapse+lawsuit&rlz...

VortexDream• 5 years ago

I'm disappointed at the level of discourse on HN about the topic. This amount of inane argument about "but the report doesn't seem that urgent" is what I would expect from Reddit.

Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

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