Surfside mayor says county and local resources ‘joining together’ to accommodate affected families
Officials continue to search for answers as to what triggered the collapse. Here’s what we know so far.
From CNN’s Madeline Holcombe
As families mourn and worry for their loved ones, some Surfside residents and officials are criticizing the management of the building, saying more should have been done to prevent the structure from crashing down in the middle of the night last week.
Officials say they still haven’t found what triggered the collapse.
From an early construction halt to assurances that the building was fine, here is what we know so far about the damage and repairs the condo underwent:
- Early halts to construction: Before Champlain Towers South and its sister building opened, there was controversy around its construction, which violated local regulations, documents show. The Surfside acting town manager at the time, George Curti, told the building complex’s contractor in a Dec. 2, 1980, letter that “you are instructed to immediately cease any further construction on any penthouses” at either of the Champlain Towers buildings. The town attorney had determined that the penthouses were “a violation of the Code of the Town of Surfside,” Curti wrote. The following week, the town council passed an ordinance granting the buildings an exception, allowing the penthouse construction to go forward, Curti wrote in a follow-up letter on Dec. 11. The decades-old controversy was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The issue was over the buildings’ height: The penthouses had not been in the original plans and they brought both buildings above the town’s 12-story height limit, the Journal reported.
- The 2018 report: Maryland-based Morabito Consultants performed a structural analysis of the building as part of Champlain Towers South’s 40-year recertification effort — a stringent process for updates and improvements enacted after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Morabito Consultants’ structural field survey had noted “abundant cracking and spalling” in concrete columns and walls, “exposed, deteriorating rebar” and failing waterproofing beneath the pool deck and entrance drive that was causing “major structural damage.”
- “The concrete deterioration is accelerating”: After inspecting the building in 2018, Morabito wrote in his report that “failed waterproofing” below the pool deck was “causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas” and warned that failure to replace it in the near future would cause “concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.” A 2021 letter to the building residents from the condominium association’s president confirmed that the exponential deterioration had indeed taken place in the interim years. “The concrete deterioration is accelerating,” wrote Jean Wodnicki, the association president. “The observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse since the initial [2018] inspection.”
- An estimated $15 million in repairs needed: The condo association debated an estimated $9 million in repairs to the building in 2018, and disputes over the lackluster response in tackling the repairs led to five of the seven board members resigning that year, the Washington Post reported, citing board meeting minutes and association president Anette Goldstein’s resignation letter. The estimated cost for repairs had grown to about $15 million by the time the work was approved by the board in 2021, according to an assessment letter obtained by CNN. Those costs were to be paid by the residents.
- 2020 letter highlights extensive damage and attempted repairs: A 2020 letter from Morabito Consultants to Wodnicki gave a nine-page summary of the extent of the damage and the work that was being done to address it. All the loose concrete around the perimeter of the pool pump room that showed signs of cracking, spalling and deterioration and that presented a “fall hazard” was removed by a concrete restoration firm, according to the work summary. But not all of the work could be completed at the time, according to the letter.
Read more about the building’s damage and repairs here.
Demolition of remaining Surfside condo structure “will take some time” to occur, Miami-Dade County mayor says
From CNN’s Melissa Alonso
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Friday that “it is important to stress….that a demolition cannot be done overnight; in fact, it takes weeks to demolish a building.”
Levine Cava said during a briefing that county officials have “had a couple of meetings with the engineers” regarding plans to demolish the remaining structure from the collapse site.
“They’re meeting regularly to look at exactly what will be the process, and we are going to move expeditiously…on decision-making, but it will take some time for the demolition to occur,” the mayor said.
“We’re proceeding with our evaluation of all of the factors, all of the time, and the impacts related to the demolition of the building,” Levine Cava explained.
Some more context: Officials have been considering demolishing the rest of the condo as operations continue in sections that crumbled to the ground a week ago, Levine Cava said Thursday evening.
Work on the debris was halted for much of the day yesterday as engineers assessed the structure still standing. Levine Cava told reporters at an evening news conference the operation resumed at about 4:45 p.m. ET. Engineers are conducting ongoing testing and evaluations of the site to expand the search into more areas as it becomes safe to do so, she said.
CNN’s Theresa Waldrop, Madeline Holcombe and Steve Almasy contributed reporting to this post.
Surfside mayor says county and local resources “joining together” to accommodate affected families
From CNN’s Melissa Alonso
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Friday that county and local resources have been working to accommodate the displaced residents of the Champlain Towers South, and “there’s not any dissatisfaction” that he can detect with the process.
“I can tell you from firsthand experience that the families appreciate it and acknowledge it, and they do it over and over again in those meetings [with officials], so there’s not any dissatisfaction [that] I’ve been able to detect,” Burkett said.
“I’m looking for that because..I’ve got a very small role, but I make it a point to be where everybody is so that if there is a problem, I can bring it up to [Miami-Dade] County Mayor Cava, I can bring it up to Florida Gov. DeSantis, and I can make our senators aware, and that’s what I’ve been doing,” Burkett said.
“That’s been working because when there has been a glitch, it has been immediately addressed,” he said.
“Our resources, our county resources, our local resources all the municipalities that are joining together, it’s like a chorus, and it’s just playing beautifully,” Burkett said.
Surfside rescuers pay respect to victims when found at collapse site, fire chief says
From CNN’s Melissa Alonso
Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said the Miami firefighter whose daughter was found in the Surfside collapse Thursday was not part of that rescue process “but obviously was notified.”
According to Cominsky, Florida Task Force 2 (FL-TF2) was working the rescue on Thursday evening “in different workgroups,” which did not include the 7-year-old’s father. The fire chief told reporters in a gaggle after the news conference that the father’s task force partners found her and then called him over.
Cominsky also addressed what happens on the site when a victim is found.
“We don’t stop because we’re searching, but we do make modifications,” the official said.
“When we come across an individual … obviously we pay our respect, we have a process,” the fire chief said. “I’m not going to go into details, but with different religious faiths, we have a process that we started from the very, very beginning and we comply with that.”
“We’ll definitely disclose what we did at a later time,” he said.
“I want to emphasize…we do that, we honor all the loved ones that we’ve lost,” he added.
Sister building of partially collapsed condo will have a “deep dive” forensic study conducted
From CNN’s Amanda Watts
A “deep dive” forensic study will begin shortly on the Champlain Towers North structure, according to Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett.
The sister building to the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South is “substantially the same as the building that came down: the same construction, the same developer, the same name, probably the same materials,” Burkett said Friday.
“People are worried,” he said.
Burkett said building officials and experts “are now getting ready to X-ray columns and do a deep dive, a forensic study into the structure.”
He said they will “take that data back, plug it into models, and get to the point where we can definitively tell people that are living there whether or not we think there’s an issue or not.”
Florida governor says state is working on a “dual track” with collapse site and Hurricane Elsa
From CNN’s Amanda Watts
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said his state is working on a “dual track” with the Surfside collapse site and Hurricane Elsa potentially impacting South Florida.
Speaking at a news conference Friday, DeSantis said “we could see tropical-force winds as early as Sunday night in southern Florida. And so we’re actively monitoring the situation like we always would do with these storms, but given what we’re doing on this site, we’re also paying special attention to any impacts that could happen here in Northeast Miami-Dade County.”
Surfside could possibly see tropical storm-force winds, DeSantis said.
“Our Department of Emergency Management is assuming that that will happen, and making the necessary preparations to be able obviously to protect a lot of the equipment, [and] you could potentially have an event out with the building as well,” he said.
“We are adding this special emphasis on this site,” DeSantis said, adding they will have “special sensitivity to anything that would need to be done to make sure that the efforts here are supported and protected.”
The governor said he is preparing for a potential state of emergency declaration, but he has not issued one yet.
Mayor: Death toll from Surfside collapse now at 20, with 128 individuals still unaccounted for
From CNN’s Melissa Alonso
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Friday that there are now 20 deaths confirmed from the Surfside collapse, as well as 188 people accounted for and 128 unaccounted for.
“The number of accounted for people has increased, which is of course good news,” said Levine Cava.
“One of the reasons that it has increased is that in some cases” officials “originally received a report of a potentially missing person,” explained Levine Cava.
“That report was only marked as one person, but when the detectives were able to reach and verify….we discovered that there are in fact, several family members who could have been counted for…and now we can mark them as safe,” the mayor said.
“This is very very good news,” Levine Cava told reporters.
Yesterday’s figures included 145 people unaccounted for.
Two additional victims discovered in the Surfside collapse, mayor says
From CNN’s Melissa Alonso
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Friday that two additional victims were discovered in the Surfside collapse last night.
The mayor announced the death toll is now up to 20, with 188 individuals accounted for and 128 individuals still unaccounted for.
“Tragically, one of those victims was the seven-year-old daughter of a city of Miami firefighter,” said the mayor.
“It goes without saying that every night since this last Wednesday has been immensely difficult for everybody and particularly the families that have been impacted, but last night was uniquely different,” said Levine Cava.
“It was truly different, different and more difficult for our first responders,” said the mayor.
Child of man who works for Miami fire department identified at Surfside collapse site, governor says
From CNN’s Melissa Alonso
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that rescuers at the Surfside collapse site “were able to identify a child whose father worked for the city of Miami Fire Department.”
“These are tough things for them,” said DeSantis referring to responders.
“Search and rescue teams have been working tirelessly and relentlessly, it’s obviously physically very taxing, it’s also emotionally draining,” said the governor.
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/v_iO13fDchM/index.html
