A resident missing in the Surfside apartment collapse told her son the building was making loud “creaking noises” a day earlier, he said.
“She just told me she had woken up around 3, 4 in the morning and had heard like some creaking noises,” her son, Pablo Rodriguez, told CNN on Thursday after part of the 12-story building tumbled to the ground. “They were loud enough to wake her.”
It really depends on the building. My mother and mother-in-law live in condos built around the same time as this building. My mother’s building uses a central system with a large cooling tower on the roof and fan coils in each unit. The building maintains the central system. My MIL on the other hand uses a system similar to Champlain where each condo owns and maintains their own system, with the compressor until on the roof. Other than unusually long linesets, these are the same as the units you would see in a single family home.
I noticed there’s a number written on each one with a giant Sharpie and figured it’s the unit number.
Looking at the video, when the center fell, that right hand portion swayed a few seconds before collapsing. How terrifying that must have been for a few seconds – you’re awakened by this rumble outside then your own room starts swaying, then oblivion.
Oh, it could be worse than that. Spoilered because this is VERY dark:
If you were in a room that had a wall sheared off you’d not only have the horror of seeing that (some of the survivors from the still-standing units have spoken of that) but you’d know exactly what was happening as your part of the building kept swaying and began to fall. And you would have no way to escape.
Have they evacuated the building that didn’t fall? I’ve read these condos were 500k to 1million $'s. Homeless and they still got a mortgage to pay every month.
That’s still better than the people inside the pancaked building. I know that was terrifying.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/heres-what-we-know-about-champlain-towers-the-luxury-condo-that-collapsed-near-miami/ar-AALoTsa
Yes, it would be for Surfside and Mia-Dade County (and probably the State EMA) to get federal-agency (FEMA, Corps of Engineers, etc) support with the work as it happens and in the investigation, and to apply for federal aid to recover part of the unexpected, unbudgeted expenses.
Being an emergency rather than “disaster” declaration the aid to individuals may be more limited and depend on the declaration’s terms.
Yes. The same morning of the collapse. A lot of people had to be taken off their balconies by ladder as, apparently, the elevators and stairwells all collapsed leaving these folks with no way to get down to the ground on their own.
There have been some brief interviews with some of these people. Physically, largely unharmed. Mentally/emotionally… that’s a little different situation.
Yes, sucks to be them, although not so much as for those under the rubble. However, given this was an upscale building I suspect that between insurance and personal resources they won’t be homeless for very long.
If this had been a high-rise inner-city housing project, there would also have been an emergency declaration.
This is a tragedy, all around.
Latest update: 4 confirmed dead, 159 missing.
That’s even worse than the original reports.
Heck, sea air is corrosive. I’m about a quarter mile from the ocean, and I gave up on anything brass (unless it has a pre-patinated “old” bronze finish), because it’d be dull brown a couple of weeks after polishing. Not the way I want to spend my leisure time.
I can only imagine what it’s doing to structural elements of the building.
I’m, not on the scene and haven’t any real data, but if you held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a root cause, I’d go with chloride induced stress corrosion. That close to the ocean is a fantastically hostile environment for steel, it takes the smallest cracks in the siding to allow sea air in, and structural members under stress corrode.
I know you qualified this by saying that they aren’t as bad off as others, but even these people should be okay. Call up your insurance agent and they should be sending you a check to stay at the Ramada and be negotiating with your bank about a mortgage payoff. That is what insurance premiums pay for.
What does this mean?
I’m going with “who was found to be.” “Who was photograhed”. Sounds British, oi?
Captured on film (digital film for sure).
Andy Slater of CNN managed to get footage of the collapse.
That was posted yesterday in post #16.
I think @Aceplace was asking about Champlain North, not the uncollapsed remnant of Champlain South? Has Champlain North been evacuated?
Not yet, apparently:
From the video it looks like the bottom supports went first.