# Champlain Towers South in Miami has caved in {2021-06-24} **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** breaking-news\ **Created:** [June 24, 2021, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931 "2021-06-24T09:42:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/121 "2021-06-26T22:04:38Z")
Based on my layman’s reading of the engineering report, I don’t understand why the building was inhabited at all. “Major structural damage” with the risk of an “exponential” increase in deterioration sounds like condemn-the-property scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/122 "2021-06-26T22:09:21Z")
Yes, I imagine the engineer who did that assessment will likely also be on the defendant list, with plaintiff’s counsel arguing that he should have been jumping up and down to get the condo board to shut it down. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/123 "2021-06-26T22:48:56Z")
The assessment was 3 years ago and the engineer was not hired to fix the building. Failure to replaced the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/124 "2021-06-26T23:52:59Z")
The engineer who wrote the report will be on expert witness lists, not defendant lists, unless he had some sort of decision making authority to fix the building. And he likely did not. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/125 "2021-06-27T00:19:13Z")
In a perfect world, the engineer would have been screaming out an alarm, but I guess in a perfect world, no such shabby work, if that’s what this was, would have occurred in the first place. I’m very very tired of the tragedies of life. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/126 "2021-06-27T01:35:12Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The engineer who wrote the report will be on expert witness lists, not defendant lists, unless he had some sort of decision making authority to fix the building. And he likely did not. A professional can have a duty to warn. Even if an engineer is not hired to do the repairs, an engineer hired to evaluate a building and assess its structural soundness can have a professional duty to warn that is in addition to the engineer’s contractual obligations. If an engineer is hired to do a structural assessment and finds that an occupied building is not structurally sound, they may well have a duty to alert the municipal authorities. As always, it depends on the laws of the particular jurisdiction. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/127 "2021-06-27T04:09:21Z")
A local station did a 3 minute news piece where they interviewed and filmed at Champlain Towers East; check out the parking garage column: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/qTUykkOSLEw/maxresdefault.jpg "Some residents of Chaplain Towers East, North choose to evacuate") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTUykkOSLEw) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/128 "2021-06-27T05:08:38Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > A professional can have a duty to warn. The guy who wrote the report wrote the report. And presumably submitted it to someone. And it’s publicly known. What more should he have done to “warn”? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/129 "2021-06-27T06:10:45Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > A professional can have a duty to warn. Even if an engineer is not hired to do the repairs, an engineer hired to evaluate a building and assess its structural soundness can have a professional duty to warn that is in addition to the engineer’s contractual obligations. If an engineer is hired to do a structural assessment and finds that an occupied building is not structurally sound, they may well have a duty to alert the municipal authorities. Again, it was a 2018 report. Other than using tarot cards to predict the deterioration in the future the report is as stated in 2018. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/130 "2021-06-27T07:31:45Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > Based on my layman’s reading of the engineering report, I don’t understand why the building was inhabited at all. “Major structural damage” with the risk of an “exponential” increase in deterioration sounds like condemn-the-property scenario. That “major damage” was found on the pool deck, right? And the pool is on a far corner of the property. If they thought it was limited to just the pool deck they might not have thought it was an imminent disaster (although the “exponential” word does sound frightening). Except maybe it wasn’t just the pool deck… ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/131 "2021-06-27T07:50:10Z")
The two other problems are both inertia and cost. There’s a tendency for people to think “it’s been OK for 40 years, it will continue to be OK, there’s no hurry” and the estimated $15 million cost to fix the problem along with mess and disruption for however long it takes. Just people the residents are wealthy by some standards doesn’t mean everyone there has a spare $110,000 to pull out of a back pocket to pay for repairs of the building which, it being a condominium, is where the money is going to come from. OK, sure, the “condo association” is supposed to have the money but I doubt they have $15 million lying around, either so my understanding is that it would be some sort of assessment on the residents. That’s aside from at least some of the residents complaining about their home being turned into a construction zone. There will also be some sort of investigation as to whether prior repairs were done properly. They might have been, but since they were treating a symptom rather than a cause they might have been futile. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/132 "2021-06-27T16:21:53Z")
> **[A woman standing on her balcony was on the phone to her husband as the Miami...](https://www.businessinsider.com/woman-was-on-phone-to-husband-as-miami-block-collapsed-2021-6)** > > The husband of Cassie Stratton heard a "blood-curdling scream" on the other end of the phone as his wife was engulfed in the Miami condo collapse. > A woman stood on the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment [as the Florida condominium collapsed](https://www.insider.com/video-florida-condo-collapse-concrete-falling-inside-apartment-2021-6) told her husband on the phone that she could see the pool “caving in” seconds before the line went dead, [Sky News reported.](https://news.sky.com/story/miami-building-collapse-relatives-of-the-159-missing-searching-for-answers-and-accountability-12342076) > > Cassie Straton was speaking to her husband, Michael, from their balcony on the south side of the Champlain Towers when she noticed the building started shaking in the early hours of Thursday, her older sister Ashely Dean said. > > “Suddenly she says, ‘honey, the pool is caving in. The pool is sinking to the ground,’” Dean said, according to Sky News. > > “He said, ‘what are you talking about?’ And she says, ‘the ground is shaking, everything’s shaking’ and then she screamed a blood-curdling scream and the line went dead,” Dean added. If the ‘pool was caving in’, that suggests the problems found in the 2018 report were the cause of the collapse. Or not; but in my ignorant assessment it looks like a smoking gun. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/133 "2021-06-27T16:34:29Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > That “major damage” was found on the pool deck, right? And the pool is on a far corner of the property. I read that and took a moment to think of what this meant. It’s somewhat misleading because you associate the words “pool deck” with an area closely surrounding the pool.The pool deck is the open area between the pool and buildings that form the lower parking garage. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/134 "2021-06-27T16:41:26Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The two other problems are both inertia and cost. There’s a tendency for people to think “it’s been OK for 40 years, it will continue to be OK, there’s no hurry” and the estimated $15 million cost to fix the problem along with mess and disruption for however long it takes. Just people the residents are wealthy by some standards doesn’t mean everyone there has a spare $110,000 to pull out of a back pocket to pay for repairs of the building which, it being a condominium, is where the money is going to come from. OK, sure, the “condo association” is supposed to have the money but I doubt they have $15 million lying around, either so my understanding is that it would be some sort of assessment on the residents. That’s aside from at least some of the residents complaining about their home being turned into a construction zone. I think this is at the core of it. I don’t know what the building is worth in good condition but $15 million has to be a massive chunk of money to come up with. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/135 "2021-06-27T17:34:28Z")
That was paywalled (Business Insider always is). Did the woman survive? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/136 "2021-06-27T17:38:25Z")
Here’s the story on yahoo. > **[A woman standing on her balcony was on the phone to her husband as the Miami...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-standing-her-balcony-phone-154010320.html)** > > The husband of Cassie Stratton heard a "blood-curdling scream" on the other end of the phone as his wife was engulfed in the Miami condo collapse. She did not. > “We’ve never been able to see her again because she’s in there. She’s trapped in there,” Dean told Sky News. “I have to be realistic; my baby is gone, my baby sister is gone.” ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/137 "2021-06-27T17:38:56Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > That was paywalled (Business Insider always is). I was able to read it. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/138 "2021-06-27T17:43:38Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Just people the residents are wealthy by some standards doesn’t mean everyone there has a spare $110,000 to pull out of a back pocket to pay for repairs of the building which, it being a condominium, is where the money is going to come from. OK, sure, the “condo association” is supposed to have the money but I doubt they have $15 million lying around, either so my understanding is that it would be some sort of assessment on the residents. Indeed that is what I would expect – either in cash or, I suppose, a loan against the building and whose service would be spread between, and added to the monthly fees of, however many owners held the condo at any given time. So either pull $110K out your back pocket or start paying for a variable share of a $15 million loan. > [@Magiver](#): > > The pool deck is the open area between the pool and buildings that form the lower parking garage. Yeah, from the look of it the visible “pool deck” is the exposed part of one whole horizontal level that also made up the topside entrance-level parking and street-entrance areas of the building, with the lower parking probably spanning the space under _both_ deck and tower. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/139 "2021-06-27T18:00:27Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Yeah, from the look of it the visible “pool deck” is the exposed part of one whole horizontal level that also made up the topside entrance-level parking and street-entrance areas of the building, with the lower parking probably spanning the space under _both_ deck and tower. Yes, you can see in the pictures that the underground garage extended to the farthest perimeter of the complex. [(images here).](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9728761/Emotional-mom-blasts-DeSantis-Miami-condo-rescue-effort-not-moving-fast-enough.html) My apologies if this was already mentioned. One of the tenants was on the phone to her husband and said she could see the pool collapsing Which was followed by screaming. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2021, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931/140 "2021-06-27T18:07:04Z")
Looking through the pictures available you can see where the garage roof beneath the remaining building collapsed. It’s amazing that section didn’t come down too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/champlain-towers-south-in-miami-has-caved-in-2021-06-24/944931.md?page=8)