All posturing by politicians aside, it's been well-known for decades that you can't load Florida soil with that kind of weight since there's no bedrock under it. And it's also been noted by some engineers and other interested parties that this building was in trouble, years ago.
I wonder how many other Florida buildings are in similar situation.
Must be a lot of them.
If they don't reinforce them all soon, there could be many more of these disasters coming.
I will wait to hear more after an investigation but often stuff that holds up for 40 years was well done but that the geologic or water conditions changed over 40 years. I.E. one explanation could be ground water levels went up or down thus changing some of the facts assumed to exist when the Civil engineer made his calculations back in 1981. Another issue might have been salt water intrusion and how that salt water effected the chosen pilon design; I.E. did it start corrosion?
Then there are possible maintenance issue or defective materials used, etc... There are many possibilities. About the only thing we know for sure is as far back as the 1990's the building was tilting due to uneven subsidence.
Obviously it's because democrats dont run Florida. Come on, man.
I think this story has less to do with which party runs a state than a widespread problem which will have ramifications for the building industry and standards in the United States.
However, Florida will feel the brunt of it that they've been too lax on building inspections and standards for too long.
To that note we have the information from a 2018 structural assessment.
""The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas," the report reads. "Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.""
That assessment done by a licensed engineering team identitied two main problems. 1) Water damage to the structural supports caused by a leaking swimming pool, old leaking water and sewer pipes with in the building, as well as water damage seeping into the concrete and steel subfloor from the outside balconies. 2) Subsidence which seems to be effecting the entire area though in an unequal and non uniform manner. That would hint at either a geologic or hydrologic origin to the subsidence issue which may or may not be compounded by engineering choices for structural foundations dating back to 1981.
So two big hints but no clear answers as yet.
