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What remains at the site of the Champlain Towers South condo building is shown on June 15, 2023, in Surfside, Florida. The pool deck of an oceanfront condominium in South Florida that collapsed in 2021, killing 98 people, did not live up to the original. building codes and standards.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
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Wilfredo Lee/AP
What remains at the site of the Champlain Towers South condo building is shown on June 15, 2023, in Surfside, Florida. The pool deck of an oceanfront condominium in South Florida that collapsed in 2021, killing 98 people, did not live up to the original. building codes and standards.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
MIAMI – A federal team investigating the causes of the collapse of a condominium tower in Florida in 2021 continues to focus on construction flaws on the building’s pool deck. Ninety-eight people died when the Champlain Towers South condominium collapsed in Surfside.
A team of the National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent Nearly $30 million to gather evidence and testing materials. used in the construction of the building. In an update Thursday at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, researchers said tests show the concrete used in the pool deck and columns supporting it was weaker than required by building codes. .
Additionally, due to the additional weight of planters added to the pool area years later, the deck and columns were subjected to more stress than they were designed for. Due to design flaws, investigators say water from the deck constantly leaked into the garage area below the pool, helping to corrode the reinforcing steel in the support columns.
But Glenn Bell, co-principal investigator at NIST, says the videos also show there was movement in the tower’s structure before the collapse.
“While there is strong evidence that the collapse began on the pool deck,” Bell said, “we have not yet ruled out a failure initiation somewhere in the tower.”
NIST is examining at least 40 what it calls “failure hypotheses,” potential causes of the building collapse.
The researchers detailed numerous areas in which the the design and construction of Champlain Towers South did not comply up to building codes when it was built in 1981. It was inspected and certified safe by the building engineer at the time. But NIST researcher Jim Harris said, “However, things were overlooked that way.” He suggested that building inspections will be among the areas covered in the final NIST report.
“It’s a key focus,” Harris said, “of what we’re investigating.”
Bell said materials testing and other technical work that is part of the investigation should be completed this summer. He hopes to have a draft report on the causes of the collapse ready for public comment in May 2025.
The report will also include recommendations on how to ensure similar building collapses do not occur in the future.
“The goal of this research is to learn from it,” Bell said, “and achieve further improvements in code and changes in practice.” He worries that those changes could meet resistance if the research, its findings and recommendations are not credible.
“That’s why we’re being so thorough,” Bell said. “We want these findings to be irrefutable. Because the potential for this tragedy to generate good, positive change is great.”
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