Miami Building Collapse

[ShockerPrez]

Not sure how many of you are following this, but I have never seen anything like this. I watched video of it falling, and if no one had told me, I would have said it was a planned demolition, in how it fell. I'm not an engineer, but am very curious to see the investigation findings. It just doesn't seem possible that one portion of the structure could fail and cause such a collapse. Seems like there would need to be several points of failure at the same time, or a chain reaction to cause it.

But what a tragedy. So many lives lost. Hopefully there will be a few survivors holding on in the rubble, but....

[Kung Wu]

Read an article on it and a professor started doing research on it in the 90s. They saw that half of it was sinking by about 2mm per year and it was very unusual (and that was in the 90s). I wonder if it was sitting above an undiscovered sink hole or something.

[RoyalShock]

Here is a USA Today article that talks about the land sinking in the 90s based on satellite observations, but not necessarily the building. The land was also identified last year as being unstable (which I assume doesn't mean impending danger, but at least something to be watching). The ironic thing is that the building's required 40-year inspection was currently underway.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/gr...ay/5333761001/

Edit: Another article linked in that one does mention the building sinking into the land (via displacement), so I'm not sure which phrasing is accurate.

[ShockerPrez]

Read an article on it and a professor started doing research on it in the 90s. They saw that half of it was sinking by about 2mm per year and it was very unusual (and that was in the 90s). I wonder if it was sitting above an undiscovered sink hole or something.

Yeah, I'm thinking there has to be an external force to cause a building like that to crumble. It just doesn't happen.

[RoyalShock]

Yeah, I'm thinking there has to be an external force to cause a building like that to crumble. It just doesn't happen.

Some are already hinting at climate change being a cause (rising salt water causing additional corrosion and weakened bonds between steel and concrete).

[Kung Wu]

Some are already hinting at climate change being a cause (rising salt water causing additional corrosion and weakened bonds between steel and concrete).

Good Lord. Anthropomorphic climate change zombies can convince themselves of anything and be convinced of anything. I could literally convince a college aged climate change zombie that the increase in man made steel structured high-rises are increasing magnetic pole intensity along the equator, which is altering the Earth's orbit to become increasingly closer to the Sun, further driving up temperatures and threatening to throw our precious life sustaining orbit out of kilter. I mean it sounds scientific so they'd be like, "Yeah! We MUST halt industrial production on steel products immediately!"

[ShockerPrez]

Some are already hinting at climate change being a cause (rising salt water causing additional corrosion and weakened bonds between steel and concrete).

Then the market for condos in South Beach is gonna get attractive!

[SHOCKvalue]

I would hazard a guess that it's related to saltwater air corrosion to structural steel and/or rebar, but I'm also not an engineer. I would also assume such potential corrosion is accounted for during design and construction.

When they implode large buildings they take out such structural members; when the twin towers came down it was because of same. That Miami condo came down in the same manner, visually-speaking.

My $.02, worth less than what you paid for it. Bare minimum, and beyond the terrible tragedy of lives lost, a seemingly random collapse like that is embarrassing to the US engineers and contractors.

[wufan]

Some are already hinting at climate change being a cause (rising salt water causing additional corrosion and weakened bonds between steel and concrete).

Honestly, climate change COULD be an issue causing this. My guess, however, is that the proposed solutions for this would be non-sensical and ineffective.

[SB Shock]

I would hazard a guess that it's related to saltwater air corrosion to structural steel and/or rebar, but I'm also not an engineer. I would also assume such potential corrosion is accounted for during design and construction.

When they implode large buildings they take out such structural members; when the twin towers came down it was because of same. That Miami condo came down in the same manner, visually-speaking.

My $.02, worth less than what you paid for it. Bare minimum, and beyond the terrible tragedy of lives lost, a seemingly random collapse like that is embarrassing to the US engineers and contractors.

It looks like either unstable foundation or corrosion of major load bearing structure (or combination of).

I don't think it just a "random" collapse. This building looks to have been at the end of it normal life and would need some major refurbishment to extend the life.

[Kung Wu]

It's gonna be an error in the piling engineering or construction (or whatever type of foundation it had) and/or soil type analysis match (meaning the structural engineering or construction of the foundation does not match the soil analysis), or something along those lines.

Or an undetected sink hole well below the foundation (far less likely).

[1979Shocker]

Florida building collapse: 2018 report found ‘major structural damage’ (msn.com)

[Ted Lasso's Neighbor]

A couple interesting stories -

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/loc...252377493.html - a lady was on the phone talking to her husband who was out-of-town when the collapse happened and she's now missing. She told her husband that she heard a tremor and went to the balcony to look at things and there was a sinkhole where the pool had been and then the line went dead.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/loc...252421658.html - the Miami Herald had a story about a contractor who was at the building two days prior who shared some photographs of issues in the parking garage and under the pool

[shock]

Ugh. That’s awful.