Federal agents have zeroed in pool deck flaws as a preliminary cause of the 2021 collapse of the 12-storey Florida Beachfront Mansion that killed 98 people.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology said in a report Wednesday that the Champlain Towers South Pool Deck began to collapse at least seven minutes ago, suggesting that the pool had dragged the building.
Glenn Bell, co-lead investigator at NIST, said the detailed analysis and computer simulations “indicate that there is a high probability that a failure has begun with the pool deck slab column connection.”
Most residents were asleep when the Surfside, Florida building collapsed into a mountain of tile rub on June 24, 2021. As the investigation continued, a Miami judge approved a more than $1 billion settlement for claims for personal injury and unlawful death from the disaster.
Surfside is located a few miles north of Miami. Nist said the final conclusion about the collapse will be released in the spring or summer of 2026.
Preliminary findings also show that “the building was suffering a few weeks before the collapse.” Among the indicators of deeper sitting problems were doors removed from that frame, cracked, shifted and clogged gates in the wall where heavy planters were located.
The day before the disaster, NIST reported that water had leaked from the ceiling of a parking garage that had experienced numerous cracks, and the flow “had dramatically increased in the hours before the collapse.”
Nist previously said that the construction flaws that led to the collapse have been around since the 40-year-old structure was built. Judith Mitrani-Reiser’s research lead says the results of Champlain Towers’ investigations will improve the safety of the buildings with both new construction and repairs of the old structure.
“This tragic event reveals flaws in our system, and quality is at the heart of it,” she said.
After the collapse, state lawmakers enacted lawmakers in 2022 requiring the Condominium Association to have sufficient reserves to cover major repairs. Some residents were caught off guard by the large fees charged to cover the long-standing delayed maintenance costs required to comply with legal standards. It led to another law that provided condo associations and residents with more flexibility in handling costs.
Meanwhile, the luxury condominium building, known as Delmore, is being built on a collapsed site purchased at an auction for $120 million by Dubai-based Damac International. The starting price is $15 million each for the new condos expected to be completed by 2029.
