Design drawings, maintenance logs and sifting through the rubble will all be key elements as investigators piece together what caused the deadly collapse of a 12-story condo building in South Florida, an engineer with U.S Forensic told The Morning Show on Friday.
“I know we want answers. We all want answers,” Asher Cohen said of the collapse, which has claimed at least four lives.
Gov. Ron DeSantis echoed that during a news conference on Friday in Pensacola, saying the cause isn’t clear yet but will be identified.
“I think that anyone who was affected by this directly wants that answer. But also, we need to know: Is this a bigger issue or is this something unique to the building?” DeSantis said.
Cohen explained that in addition to design drawings and maintenance logs, investigators will also look closely at the 40-year certification of the Champlain Towers South, which was built in 1981.
Cohen called that a “fast-moving” time for the city of Miami and surrounding areas, like Surfside.
“The current code is vastly different from the code that was in existence in 1981 and, obviously, pre-Hurricane Andrew when a lot of stuff was upgraded,” Cohen said. “We don’t want to put any blame on anyone at this point, but what we do want to say is when you have these periods in cities’ histories when you’re talking about this rapid expansion, sometimes certain construction and design-related items may be overlooked or certain corners may be cut.”
Cohen was quick to point out that it’s likely multiple factors contributed to the collapse.
He said coastal structures can be subject to corrosion, and that watching video of the collapse that was captured on surveillance video, it appears a slab might have failed.
“We saw, unfortunately, with the World Trade Center that when you have a slab failure, it imparts a significant impact load as it starts to collapse. We saw that in the video that once it happens, it’s a domino effect,” Cohen said.
Cohen said he saw a report from a researcher at Florida International University that said the building was built on reclaimed wetlands and had been sinking at a rate of about 2 millimeters a year in the 1990s.
Cohen pointed out that most of South Florida was once wetlands.
“It’s not ideal but it’s not uncommon for that (sinking) to be present. But that alone would not indicate that that was the factor that caused this failure,” Cohen said.
He said he and his colleagues are looking at all possible reasons for the failure.
“I don’t want to make it seem as if right now we have any certainty as to if it was a design issue, construction issue or just a long-term deterioration and perhaps deferred maintenance issue,” he said. “But we will uncover that.”