You have to think this is not going to be the last Miami building destined to this fate. Between the city being at sea level, displacing ground, and rising sea levels most of these buildings foundations are going to be heavily stressed over the next 10-20 years. Based on that NYTimes article, even the areas of prior repair quickly become visibly damaged.
Miami is not the only city in the world that fits this description. Take a look at Florida on Google maps. All those pond size lakes... sink holes. I suspect we will see a trend on blaming global warm (rising sea levels) and if people truly believed this, the innercoastal condo market would crash across the globe. In the end, there will be many smaller factors that contributed to the failure, with the catalyst being a shift under the foundation.
If anyone is miraculously alive, now trapped under debris with fire and smoke. That is so damn sad. The whole thing is. Mayor: Facing incredibly difficulties with this fire. Fire has been going on for awhile. Very deep fire. Difficult to locate the source of fire. It is hampering our search efforts. We see the smoke has spread, spread laterally throughout the pile. Difficult to isolate the source and therefore stop it. Using infrared technology, foam, water, all the tactics we can to contain the fire and smoke spread. We created a trench to try and isolate the fire and continue searching for victims. No further victims have been found. Numbers are the same: 127 accounted for, 159 unaccounted for, 4 confirmed dead. Priority continues to be search & rescue.
I absolutely agree that this should be a warning to all the new developments on barrier islands. There is a reason these are called "barrier islands" and they are meant to take the brunt of ocean to protect what's behind them rather than for permanent development. In the next few decades I predict we will see more issues with developments like this. It might not be as dramatic as building collapses but we're already seeing flooding and storm issues all around the World.
Just saw another report that in 2018 there was damage found in a structural slab below the pool. The damage was due to improper waterproofing that was allowing water to pond on the slab rather than draining off. As an architect I cannot stress how important waterproofing is in buildings. Especially in a marine environment like Miami Dade.
Imagine if Miami had also earthquakes. A seismogenic area with this kind of loose sinking ground and errosion..everything would collapse with just 4 Richters.
Look what is already happening in Florida Keys. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...24/florida-keys-climate-change-sea-level-rise They basically have already given up on part of them sinking and the Miami lawmakers are doing nothing to help.
I was reading that each homeowner was responsible for repairs to their own condo. How does that work in multi family housing? How do you determine liability?
Condos are typically wall to wall, meaning owner is responsible for maintenance of everything inside their unit. I can't imagine they would be responsible for structural. Some townhouses HOAs will cover exterior repairs such as siding or roof repairs and rework.
Like you said, you can require interior/exterior, usually for the "look" of the place or whatever, but in no way can you as a tenant/partial owner be required to handle structural issues on a multi-unit building.
There is more evidence that the improper waterproofing under the pool might've led to the collapse. I saw a theory on an architecture magazine that the slab gave way under the pool causing the pool to collapse into the garage and then the garage collapsed into the ground forming a sinkhole that brought the rest down.
I'd heard that there was significant construction happening nearby and that residents had recently voiced concerns over this construction causing issues for their building. I suspect that there were several factors that contributed, though there was likely a main culprit (such as the pool).
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. The whole legal concept of a condominium is that individual units are sold along with an undivided interest in common areas. Once the original developer has sold the last unit, the developer is “out” with no real property interest remaining in the property. The collective owners of all the units then “enjoy” a tenancy in common with all common areas of the property. Collectively, they ARE the HOA (or COA), and it’s ultimately their collective responsibility for the upkeep of the common areas. I’m not saying that nobody can get sued here. There’s always room for that In our litigious society, but it could easily be some poor sucker who got roped into volunteering to being an HOA/COA officer or board member—-a generally unpaid and HIGHLY thankless position. Sad situation all around.
Also, there’s plenty of case law for unit owners (individually, in a group or en masse as the Association) bringing suit against the developer/builder for structural defects, but this building was OLD….that ship sailed decades ago.
I may have misread the article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cn...side-condo-owners-assessments-invs/index.html The condo association was going to assess each owner from $80k-$300k for repairs which I assume was the liability of the condo association as a whole. I also assume no work was started as no payments had been collected yet. Hope the condo association has good insurance.
Here is a short read on sinkholes from Lake Country, FL (one of the most active areas for sinkholes). https://www.lakecountyfl.gov/departments/public_works/engineering/sinkhole.aspx It mentions the impact new construction could have on nearby sinkholes that are starting to form. Miami had only received a couple inches of rain over the previous 30 days and had significant rainfall leading up to the disaster. The Lake County site explains how human activity can contribute to sinkholes. The significant amount of pooling of water in the garage and the pool area failures certainly seems to indicate poor drainage was the largest contributing factor. It seems as if this was a perfect storm.
High rises this size are professionally ran. Clearly none of the management or contractors knew the significance of the issues at hand. What is blatantly obvious is 15M would not fix the issues.
Miami condo collapse prompts questions over role of climate change https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/29/miami-condo-collapse-questions-climate-change
