6 ms·

Miami building collapse: Letter in April warned of worsening damage

57 points by fumblebee 5y ago

malwarebytess 5y ago
The letter seems intended to convince residents to pony up for necessary repairs. The engineer in 2008 warned that the damage would increase "exponentially." The engineer from the 2018 report was put in charge of overseeing the repairs in 2019; and it seems like the repairs were planned, moving slowly. How much of this 3 year delay is because of HOA politics? There was some indication that the damage was potentially worse than it appeared: >Also, when performing any concrete restoration work, it is impossible to know the extent of the damage to the underlying rebar until the concrete is opened up. Oftentimes the damage is more extensive than can be determined by inspection of the surface. Does this letter demonstrate negligence by the engineering firm? If the damage was that bad should the firm have contacted the city? Did the residents contribute to the delay? A haunting quote: > A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now. The letter from April: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/miamiletter0628.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/miamiletter0628...
- myphs 5y ago
  And some people try to push their agenda and make it about climate change. Absolutely ridiculous! "Did climate change undermine Champlain Towers South?" https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/28/did-climate-change-undermine-champlain-towers-south https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/28/did-clima...
  - input_sh 5y ago
    I can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic or not, but if not, you should've definitely picked a better link. That link says "climate change wasn't the only reason", not "climate change has nothing to do with this".
    - myphs 5y ago
      I was sarcastic. I guess it's hard to tell.
      - andybak 5y ago
        Even now I'm not sure I understand what part you are claiming was sarcasm.
      - wayoutthere 5y ago
        Sarcasm is a lazy rhetorical tool that doesn’t translate well to the internet. IMO it’s best avoided online.
      - mromanuk 5y ago
        Only way to use sarcasm online is, making it literal with the help of a closing tag like /sarcasm o </sarcasm> Is like winking your eye after your sarcastic phrase
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- matwood 5y ago
  Humans are weird creatures. It's hard to believe something so far out of the ordinary can happen until it does happen. Black swan events come to mind. Yes, the building needed a lot of work done but imminent collapse was probably not on anyones mind. HOA politics may have been part of it, but it was probably simpler. It was going to cost a lot of money, and people tend to fight large assessments. The bigger HOA failure sounds like 40 years of poor maintenance. There are reports of a similar building nearby that was maintained, and it shows none of the same problems.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    > It was going to cost a lot of money, and people tend to fight large assessments. If a condo block will need work costing $100,000 per unit after 40 years, what's the proper way of financing that? Does the HOA start saving up for it from year 1 by charging a hefty management fee? Do they rely on every homeowner being able to come up with $100,000 on demand? Do they just assume they won't be around in 40 years so it's someone else's problem? I've never really heard a satisfactory answer to that, which is one of the reasons I don't own a condo.
    - cesarb 5y ago
      Not in the USA, but I've lived in apartment buildings my whole life, and I own the apartment I currently live in. While I haven't seen such an extreme number, I have seen the way expensive repairs are dealt with. It's always decided in a condominium assembly, so every apartment owner has its say and it's put to a vote. For least expensive repairs, it's either an extra fee on the monthly condominium payment, or it comes from the condominium "emergency funds" account (which is then gradually recharged through the monthly condominium payments). For more expensive repairs, the extra fee is spread over several months. For really expensive repairs like your example, I'd expect the value to be financed (borrowing from a bank or similar), and gradually paid back through an extra fee on the monthly condominium payments.
    - sjg007 5y ago
      You sort of need a condo savings account that can be invested where the premiums you pay get invested. You need some laws or state regulations to make sure some minimums are maintained. The gains would then offset a potentially lower selling price since the HOA would have enough money to cover repairs. But at the same time for a single family home, it is not unusual to invest 100k in a remodel if the location supports it on a 40 year old house. A condo should operate similarly although the scope of changes you can make is different obviously.
- tyingq 5y ago
  Other stories say there were 136 apartments in the building, so $15M / 136 = $110,294 per apartment. I imagine there were quite a few owners where that was just not possible. So denial kicks in.
- blntechie 5y ago
  HOA politics is a nightmare. Our HOA is trying to re-paint our condo as it had faded out and has been a 1 year exercise to vote for the resolution, get bids, choose vendor, approve vendor etc. There have been opposition in every stage by people who voted no but they don’t want to give up. I can completely understand the desperation in that letter. It was a very well worded letter for one such.
- themaninthedark 5y ago
  Well, it does look like they were able to save money on demolition costs. Jokes aside, this is a horrible tragedy. It would be interesting to know if they had earlier warnings as well and if that didn't contribute to ignoring the problem as there were no major consequences. It would be interesting to know when in 2018 that the report was finalized as that would be around the same time as the FIU bridge collapse. Seeing things like this makes me very wary to have joint ownership as the majority can hold the minority hostage on things like repair. And what could you do in this situation? Sell your unit? If it collapses in 6 months to a year and kills the person you sold it to, what is the morality of that decision?
bongoman37 5y ago
I think trickle by trickle we are learning that it didn't just happen completely unexpectedly. There were many, many ignored warnings before something as big and complex as this failed.
tut-urut-utut 5y ago
We seem to have this pattern everywhere. Any warning signs about potential problems that could potentially endanger human lives get ignored to save costs. Probability of every single accident is just too low, fix too expensive, and people in charge just decide to ignore it or postpone action. Bug, guess what, there are too many cases of those single low probabilities, so something somewhere has to happen, it's just what and where.
- sneak 5y ago
  > Any warning signs about potential problems that could potentially endanger human lives get ignored to save costs. That's not always true. There are industries where the the consequences for ignoring warnings are too great and any warning sign in a specific class is a must-handle-as-emergency event (either by law or by liability concerns), such as a commercial pilot showing up for work with even the tiniest signs of intoxication, or a student casually mentioning to a teacher or therapist (mandated reporters) things that could indicate abuse. Bartenders, however, mostly won't go to jail for serving a drink that made someone drunk enough to kill someone with their car minutes later, however. There are certainly gaps.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    > such as a commercial pilot I think the whole Boeing scandal of the last years proves the opposite, no industry is safe. I can't find it right now but I remember seeing a documentary about Boeing factory workers reporting issues in the assembly lines and being fired and sued over it. Edit: might have been: https://youtu.be/PdYcJldzOdw https://youtu.be/PdYcJldzOdw
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      If the pilots were at fault, they'd be in jail, but executives are safe.
  - jeltz 5y ago
    There was a scandal 20 years ago about intoxicated BA pilots so they did not always take it seriously. It was first when someone made a documentary about it. I am sure there were plenty of ignored warnings before the documentary. https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81889&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81889&page=1
hugh-avherald 5y ago
What is absent from coverage and what I want to know is how typical these warnings are. If every building inspection of nearly every apartment block gives a warning like this, either more apartments are at risk of collapse or the delay was justified.
- bongoman37 5y ago
  Yea, maybe such warnings about every complex should be kept in a publicly accessible location so buyers are aware of it and owners would be incentivized to take care of issues to keep their property prices stable.
  - showsover 5y ago
    Or, just an idea, it shouldn't be on buyers to ensure that the building they buy won't crash down on them. It should be on the government requiring companies to build things up to code.
    - HarryHirsch 5y ago
      Apparently there was a government official at the meeting where the 2018 report was discussed, and he told the audience that everything was just fine, because home values.
    - stdbrouw 5y ago
      Even buildings that are built to code can deteriorate or suffer unexpected damage.
    - donkeyd 5y ago
      Sure, but that moves responsibility from consumers to big business and might impact profits. So we all know that probably won't happen in the US.
- cowsandmilk 5y ago
  I’ve tried to find numbers, but my general feeling from condo shopping is that many concrete high rises from the 1980s skimped on sealant and now have lots of water damage. I regularly saw similar assessment letters around underground garages along with slow movement due to high costs and continued discovery of more issues. When shopping, the potential unknown around future assessments scared me off. Now I would be even more terrified.
artembugara 5y ago
This reminds me Yuriy Bykov's movie "The Fool": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/
KyleBrandt 5y ago
It seems the 40 year inspection is required by Miami-Dade county, and this is all work in preparation for that. The letter the county sends out http://www.miamidade.gov/permits/library/recertification-building.pdf http://www.miamidade.gov/permits/library/recertification-bui... says: "Failure to submit the required Recertification Report will result in the issuance of a Civil Violation Notice or ticket without further notice to you and referral of this matter to the Unsafe Structures Unit for the initiation of condemnation proceedings" So to me this makes it seem like some government checks are in place. But curious if there were more recent government backed inspections for safety.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
illwrks 5y ago
I wonder if this will be an increasingly common occurrence in decades to come. If you live in a high rise will the cost of maintenance become too much of a burden? Will be be cheaper and safer to just tear a building down? What happens if you're a recent purchaser...
- sandworm101 5y ago
  A big concrete highrise on reclaimed land beside a salty warm ocean breaking onto a sandy beach... yes. For typical buildings built in normal areas no. The New York/vancouver/San Fransisco skyline is safe.
- zh3 5y ago
  After the Grenfell tower fire in the UK [0], residents in many tower blocks have been hit with huge bills for fire safety, e.g. £100k for apartments that cost less than that a decade ago [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire [1]https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/05/salford-residents-each-face-100000-bill-for-post-grenfell-fire-safety-costs https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/05/salford-resi...
matt_s 5y ago
However horrible the collapse was, this site isn't "Structural Engineer News". I guess this goes in the category of "news hackers will discuss" instead of Hacker News.
- paulcole 5y ago
  There’s definitely a pervasive belief here that a challenging and complex topic completely unrelated to software development can be intelligently discussed, understood, and potentially “solved” by software developers. But imagine Marketing News where the same topics are discussed by marketing professionals. What would HN commenters think of the discourse there?
  - matt_s 5y ago
    I don't see how this topic is challenging or complex. The building had a catastrophic structural failure. Having expertise in software tends to associate with analyzing skills. Just because we can analyze things doesn't compensate for being completely ignorant of structural engineering or other unrelated topics. You know how you can read an article in a newspaper about software and find a bunch of incorrect or misunderstood concepts that lead you to believe the reporter is misinformed or doesn't know what they're talking about? That's because you have deep knowledge of that topic. Then you turn the page/click on another article about a building collapse and feel empathy that its a problem that could be solved. Just because we have problem solving skills and can analyze things doesn't mean that transfers to other disciplines. If I want ignorant commentary on news I can go nearly anywhere online and find it. I'd rather have HN on focused topics than popular news topics discussed by hackers. I'm just pointing out the question of: where does the line get drawn? If there was a Marketing News site, would a building collapse be something discussed? I imagine a venn diagram of Marketing and Software has overlap (e.g. SEO, search engines, etc.), whereas Structural Engineering and Software probably does not.
    - paulcole 5y ago
      > I don't see how this topic is challenging or complex No offense to you, but this is HN in a nutshell.
streamofdigits 5y ago
Can a modern building fail so spectacularly through incremental damage if it wasn't only borderline sound to start with? Is there any way to assess retrospectively how many corners may have been cut when erecting it? Charging for superior materials, but using sub-par materials seems to be number one "ethics dilemma" in this corner of the human experience https://www.ethicaladvocate.com/construction-industry-ethics-dilemma/ https://www.ethicaladvocate.com/construction-industry-ethics...
- matwood 5y ago
  > Can a modern building fail so spectacularly through incremental damage if it wasn't only borderline sound to start with? Interesting question where I assume yes. No matter how well something is built, without proper maintenance it will eventually fail.
  - streamofdigits 5y ago
    Thats definitely true, but the timescale of which ultimate failure happens is critical. With billions of buildings on the planet if poor maintenance was such a major and primary risk factor materializing on a 40yr timespan I would expect many more buildings collapsing left and right. People can downvote my comment all they want, there will be a in-depth inquiry here and I will be surprised if it doesn't somehow transpire there was some pre-existing risk that precipitated events...
aaron695 5y ago
What happened is going to be a thing that's different. Buildings don't just fall down. It'll be something like a burst water-main creating a sink hole. These, we should have known stories are pretty lame.
- matwood 5y ago
  > It'll be something like a burst water-main creating a sink hole. I wondered this. Some of the eye witness accounts of those who escaped said the parking garage was full of water they had to go through to get out. Sink holes also happen a lot in FL, but not sure how often that close to the beach.
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    The parking structure was under the pool. That isn't normal. Building under pools only happens in high-density areas to maximize square footage. Normally the pool sits on nothing more than its own foundation pad.
  - aaron695 5y ago
    > the parking garage was full of water The pool never collapsed or lost water. Local pipes bursting from the collapse might do that. Things like a truck hitting a pylon would also need bad architecture. A water or sewerage leak could undercut a few pylons at once.
bradfa 5y ago
I've not seen in any news reports, nor does this BBC article mention, if the deterioration noted by the previous engineering reports were actually in the part of the building which collapsed or not. If anyone can point to a diagram or other notation in the media which shows a correlation between where the building collapsed and where the engineer(s?) noted the issues were, I'm interested in seeing that. I understand that failures in one part of a structure may cause a catastrophic failure in a separate, seemingly far away, part of the structure. But it feels like if the engineer(s?) reported that things needed to be fixed quite soon and then that part of the building is what failed that the media would have pointed this out by now.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  I think the theory is that the initial collapse happened around the pool deck/parking garage area, where concrete deteriation was initially observed. Then after that area caved in, it caused the building area next to it to pancake. >Appearing to reinforce the experts’ theory is the story of a resident who called her husband moments before the collapse to tell him she could see a crater in the pool area from the fourth-floor balcony of their ocean-front apartment. Then the line went dead, said Mike Stratton, who was out of town at the time. His wife, Cassie, is among the 156 people who are still unaccounted for. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article252396233.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/...
bouncycastle 5y ago
Relevant article "The problem with reinforced concrete" https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/art-architecture-design/problem-reinforced-concrete https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/art-architecture-design/pr... Quite "Many concrete structures built this century will be obsolete before its end"
architect 5y ago
I wonder when is the media going to mention that John McAfee had a unit in that building. And that it collapsed less than 24 hours after his alleged 'suicide'... Questions.......

57 points by fumblebee 5y ago

The letter seems intended to convince residents to pony up for necessary repairs. The engineer in 2008 warned that the damage would increase "exponentially." The engineer from the 2018 report was put in charge of overseeing the repairs in 2019; and it seems like the repairs were planned, moving slowly. How much of this 3 year delay is because of HOA politics? There was some indication that the damage was potentially worse than it appeared: >Also, when performing any concrete restoration work, it is impossible to know the extent of the damage to the underlying rebar until the concrete is opened up. Oftentimes the damage is more extensive than can be determined by inspection of the surface. Does this letter demonstrate negligence by the engineering firm? If the damage was that bad should the firm have contacted the city? Did the residents contribute to the delay? A haunting quote: > A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now. The letter from April: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/miamiletter0628.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/miamiletter0628...

myphs 5y ago
And some people try to push their agenda and make it about climate change. Absolutely ridiculous! "Did climate change undermine Champlain Towers South?" https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/28/did-climate-change-undermine-champlain-towers-south https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/28/did-clima...
- input_sh 5y ago
  I can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic or not, but if not, you should've definitely picked a better link. That link says "climate change wasn't the only reason", not "climate change has nothing to do with this".
  - myphs 5y ago
    I was sarcastic. I guess it's hard to tell.
    - andybak 5y ago
      Even now I'm not sure I understand what part you are claiming was sarcasm.
    - wayoutthere 5y ago
      Sarcasm is a lazy rhetorical tool that doesn’t translate well to the internet. IMO it’s best avoided online.
    - mromanuk 5y ago
      Only way to use sarcasm online is, making it literal with the help of a closing tag like /sarcasm o </sarcasm> Is like winking your eye after your sarcastic phrase
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matwood 5y ago
Humans are weird creatures. It's hard to believe something so far out of the ordinary can happen until it does happen. Black swan events come to mind. Yes, the building needed a lot of work done but imminent collapse was probably not on anyones mind. HOA politics may have been part of it, but it was probably simpler. It was going to cost a lot of money, and people tend to fight large assessments. The bigger HOA failure sounds like 40 years of poor maintenance. There are reports of a similar building nearby that was maintained, and it shows none of the same problems.
- michaelt 5y ago
  > It was going to cost a lot of money, and people tend to fight large assessments. If a condo block will need work costing $100,000 per unit after 40 years, what's the proper way of financing that? Does the HOA start saving up for it from year 1 by charging a hefty management fee? Do they rely on every homeowner being able to come up with $100,000 on demand? Do they just assume they won't be around in 40 years so it's someone else's problem? I've never really heard a satisfactory answer to that, which is one of the reasons I don't own a condo.
  - cesarb 5y ago
    Not in the USA, but I've lived in apartment buildings my whole life, and I own the apartment I currently live in. While I haven't seen such an extreme number, I have seen the way expensive repairs are dealt with. It's always decided in a condominium assembly, so every apartment owner has its say and it's put to a vote. For least expensive repairs, it's either an extra fee on the monthly condominium payment, or it comes from the condominium "emergency funds" account (which is then gradually recharged through the monthly condominium payments). For more expensive repairs, the extra fee is spread over several months. For really expensive repairs like your example, I'd expect the value to be financed (borrowing from a bank or similar), and gradually paid back through an extra fee on the monthly condominium payments.
  - sjg007 5y ago
    You sort of need a condo savings account that can be invested where the premiums you pay get invested. You need some laws or state regulations to make sure some minimums are maintained. The gains would then offset a potentially lower selling price since the HOA would have enough money to cover repairs. But at the same time for a single family home, it is not unusual to invest 100k in a remodel if the location supports it on a 40 year old house. A condo should operate similarly although the scope of changes you can make is different obviously.
tyingq 5y ago
Other stories say there were 136 apartments in the building, so $15M / 136 = $110,294 per apartment. I imagine there were quite a few owners where that was just not possible. So denial kicks in.
blntechie 5y ago
HOA politics is a nightmare. Our HOA is trying to re-paint our condo as it had faded out and has been a 1 year exercise to vote for the resolution, get bids, choose vendor, approve vendor etc. There have been opposition in every stage by people who voted no but they don’t want to give up. I can completely understand the desperation in that letter. It was a very well worded letter for one such.
themaninthedark 5y ago
Well, it does look like they were able to save money on demolition costs. Jokes aside, this is a horrible tragedy. It would be interesting to know if they had earlier warnings as well and if that didn't contribute to ignoring the problem as there were no major consequences. It would be interesting to know when in 2018 that the report was finalized as that would be around the same time as the FIU bridge collapse. Seeing things like this makes me very wary to have joint ownership as the majority can hold the minority hostage on things like repair. And what could you do in this situation? Sell your unit? If it collapses in 6 months to a year and kills the person you sold it to, what is the morality of that decision?

bongoman37 5y ago

I think trickle by trickle we are learning that it didn't just happen completely unexpectedly. There were many, many ignored warnings before something as big and complex as this failed.

tut-urut-utut 5y ago

We seem to have this pattern everywhere. Any warning signs about potential problems that could potentially endanger human lives get ignored to save costs. Probability of every single accident is just too low, fix too expensive, and people in charge just decide to ignore it or postpone action. Bug, guess what, there are too many cases of those single low probabilities, so something somewhere has to happen, it's just what and where.

sneak 5y ago
> Any warning signs about potential problems that could potentially endanger human lives get ignored to save costs. That's not always true. There are industries where the the consequences for ignoring warnings are too great and any warning sign in a specific class is a must-handle-as-emergency event (either by law or by liability concerns), such as a commercial pilot showing up for work with even the tiniest signs of intoxication, or a student casually mentioning to a teacher or therapist (mandated reporters) things that could indicate abuse. Bartenders, however, mostly won't go to jail for serving a drink that made someone drunk enough to kill someone with their car minutes later, however. There are certainly gaps.
- lm28469 5y ago
  > such as a commercial pilot I think the whole Boeing scandal of the last years proves the opposite, no industry is safe. I can't find it right now but I remember seeing a documentary about Boeing factory workers reporting issues in the assembly lines and being fired and sued over it. Edit: might have been: https://youtu.be/PdYcJldzOdw https://youtu.be/PdYcJldzOdw
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    If the pilots were at fault, they'd be in jail, but executives are safe.
- jeltz 5y ago
  There was a scandal 20 years ago about intoxicated BA pilots so they did not always take it seriously. It was first when someone made a documentary about it. I am sure there were plenty of ignored warnings before the documentary. https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81889&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81889&page=1

hugh-avherald 5y ago

What is absent from coverage and what I want to know is how typical these warnings are. If every building inspection of nearly every apartment block gives a warning like this, either more apartments are at risk of collapse or the delay was justified.

bongoman37 5y ago
Yea, maybe such warnings about every complex should be kept in a publicly accessible location so buyers are aware of it and owners would be incentivized to take care of issues to keep their property prices stable.
- showsover 5y ago
  Or, just an idea, it shouldn't be on buyers to ensure that the building they buy won't crash down on them. It should be on the government requiring companies to build things up to code.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    Apparently there was a government official at the meeting where the 2018 report was discussed, and he told the audience that everything was just fine, because home values.
  - stdbrouw 5y ago
    Even buildings that are built to code can deteriorate or suffer unexpected damage.
  - donkeyd 5y ago
    Sure, but that moves responsibility from consumers to big business and might impact profits. So we all know that probably won't happen in the US.
cowsandmilk 5y ago
I’ve tried to find numbers, but my general feeling from condo shopping is that many concrete high rises from the 1980s skimped on sealant and now have lots of water damage. I regularly saw similar assessment letters around underground garages along with slow movement due to high costs and continued discovery of more issues. When shopping, the potential unknown around future assessments scared me off. Now I would be even more terrified.

artembugara 5y ago

This reminds me Yuriy Bykov's movie "The Fool": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/

KyleBrandt 5y ago

It seems the 40 year inspection is required by Miami-Dade county, and this is all work in preparation for that. The letter the county sends out http://www.miamidade.gov/permits/library/recertification-building.pdf http://www.miamidade.gov/permits/library/recertification-bui... says: "Failure to submit the required Recertification Report will result in the issuance of a Civil Violation Notice or ticket without further notice to you and referral of this matter to the Unsafe Structures Unit for the initiation of condemnation proceedings" So to me this makes it seem like some government checks are in place. But curious if there were more recent government backed inspections for safety.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

illwrks 5y ago

I wonder if this will be an increasingly common occurrence in decades to come. If you live in a high rise will the cost of maintenance become too much of a burden? Will be be cheaper and safer to just tear a building down? What happens if you're a recent purchaser...

sandworm101 5y ago
A big concrete highrise on reclaimed land beside a salty warm ocean breaking onto a sandy beach... yes. For typical buildings built in normal areas no. The New York/vancouver/San Fransisco skyline is safe.
zh3 5y ago
After the Grenfell tower fire in the UK [0], residents in many tower blocks have been hit with huge bills for fire safety, e.g. £100k for apartments that cost less than that a decade ago [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire [1]https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/05/salford-residents-each-face-100000-bill-for-post-grenfell-fire-safety-costs https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/05/salford-resi...

matt_s 5y ago

However horrible the collapse was, this site isn't "Structural Engineer News". I guess this goes in the category of "news hackers will discuss" instead of Hacker News.

paulcole 5y ago
There’s definitely a pervasive belief here that a challenging and complex topic completely unrelated to software development can be intelligently discussed, understood, and potentially “solved” by software developers. But imagine Marketing News where the same topics are discussed by marketing professionals. What would HN commenters think of the discourse there?
- matt_s 5y ago
  I don't see how this topic is challenging or complex. The building had a catastrophic structural failure. Having expertise in software tends to associate with analyzing skills. Just because we can analyze things doesn't compensate for being completely ignorant of structural engineering or other unrelated topics. You know how you can read an article in a newspaper about software and find a bunch of incorrect or misunderstood concepts that lead you to believe the reporter is misinformed or doesn't know what they're talking about? That's because you have deep knowledge of that topic. Then you turn the page/click on another article about a building collapse and feel empathy that its a problem that could be solved. Just because we have problem solving skills and can analyze things doesn't mean that transfers to other disciplines. If I want ignorant commentary on news I can go nearly anywhere online and find it. I'd rather have HN on focused topics than popular news topics discussed by hackers. I'm just pointing out the question of: where does the line get drawn? If there was a Marketing News site, would a building collapse be something discussed? I imagine a venn diagram of Marketing and Software has overlap (e.g. SEO, search engines, etc.), whereas Structural Engineering and Software probably does not.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    > I don't see how this topic is challenging or complex No offense to you, but this is HN in a nutshell.

streamofdigits 5y ago

Can a modern building fail so spectacularly through incremental damage if it wasn't only borderline sound to start with? Is there any way to assess retrospectively how many corners may have been cut when erecting it? Charging for superior materials, but using sub-par materials seems to be number one "ethics dilemma" in this corner of the human experience https://www.ethicaladvocate.com/construction-industry-ethics-dilemma/ https://www.ethicaladvocate.com/construction-industry-ethics...

matwood 5y ago
> Can a modern building fail so spectacularly through incremental damage if it wasn't only borderline sound to start with? Interesting question where I assume yes. No matter how well something is built, without proper maintenance it will eventually fail.
- streamofdigits 5y ago
  Thats definitely true, but the timescale of which ultimate failure happens is critical. With billions of buildings on the planet if poor maintenance was such a major and primary risk factor materializing on a 40yr timespan I would expect many more buildings collapsing left and right. People can downvote my comment all they want, there will be a in-depth inquiry here and I will be surprised if it doesn't somehow transpire there was some pre-existing risk that precipitated events...

aaron695 5y ago

What happened is going to be a thing that's different. Buildings don't just fall down. It'll be something like a burst water-main creating a sink hole. These, we should have known stories are pretty lame.

matwood 5y ago
> It'll be something like a burst water-main creating a sink hole. I wondered this. Some of the eye witness accounts of those who escaped said the parking garage was full of water they had to go through to get out. Sink holes also happen a lot in FL, but not sure how often that close to the beach.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  The parking structure was under the pool. That isn't normal. Building under pools only happens in high-density areas to maximize square footage. Normally the pool sits on nothing more than its own foundation pad.
- aaron695 5y ago
  > the parking garage was full of water The pool never collapsed or lost water. Local pipes bursting from the collapse might do that. Things like a truck hitting a pylon would also need bad architecture. A water or sewerage leak could undercut a few pylons at once.

bradfa 5y ago

I've not seen in any news reports, nor does this BBC article mention, if the deterioration noted by the previous engineering reports were actually in the part of the building which collapsed or not. If anyone can point to a diagram or other notation in the media which shows a correlation between where the building collapsed and where the engineer(s?) noted the issues were, I'm interested in seeing that. I understand that failures in one part of a structure may cause a catastrophic failure in a separate, seemingly far away, part of the structure. But it feels like if the engineer(s?) reported that things needed to be fixed quite soon and then that part of the building is what failed that the media would have pointed this out by now.

Hamuko 5y ago
I think the theory is that the initial collapse happened around the pool deck/parking garage area, where concrete deteriation was initially observed. Then after that area caved in, it caused the building area next to it to pancake. >Appearing to reinforce the experts’ theory is the story of a resident who called her husband moments before the collapse to tell him she could see a crater in the pool area from the fourth-floor balcony of their ocean-front apartment. Then the line went dead, said Mike Stratton, who was out of town at the time. His wife, Cassie, is among the 156 people who are still unaccounted for. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article252396233.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/...

bouncycastle 5y ago

Relevant article "The problem with reinforced concrete" https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/art-architecture-design/problem-reinforced-concrete https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/art-architecture-design/pr... Quite "Many concrete structures built this century will be obsolete before its end"

architect 5y ago

I wonder when is the media going to mention that John McAfee had a unit in that building. And that it collapsed less than 24 hours after his alleged 'suicide'... Questions.......