Government in Action or Government Inaction

A 12-story condo in Miami suffered a partial collapse. Four residents died.  51 others remain unaccounted for. Some estimates have the missing at 159.

Who knew? Who could have known? 

A Florida high-rise that collapsed early Thursday was determined to be unstable a year ago, according to a researcher at Florida International University.

The building, which was constructed in 1981, has been sinking at an alarming rate since the 1990s, according to a study in 2020 by Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment.

According to Surfside Town Commissioner Eliana Salzhauer, “This was not an act of God. This was not a natural disaster. Buildings don't just fall.”

The county requires commercial and multifamily buildings to be recertified every 40 years. The process involves electrical and structural inspections for a report to be filed with the town. It was underway for the condominium building but had not been completed, town officials said Thursday.

It seems the building, like others nearby, was constructed on reclaimed land.

Reclaimed land, whether landfill or wetlands, can compact over time, leading to shifts in the ground under the building and potentially to the foundation.

“A milliliter may seem like a small number, but when you add them up over many years, it becomes a big number,” Levy said.

The building could have been especially vulnerable if the ground it was situated on was sinking at different rates, causing differential settlement.

“The fact that one part of it is still standing is important. The portion that collapsed might have been tipping compared to the other portion, which may not have been sinking as fast. So you have an unequal situation, and in between, things begin to crack and tilt,” Levy said.

“There has to be some trigger that occurs. If you have two parts of a building and one part is well-founded and doesn’t move that much and the other is not, then between the two, you get movement. That can cause distortion in the floor slabs. They can begin to crack; suddenly, you get cracking, breaking and fracturing,” he said.

Just what happened will have to await an engineering autopsy. Did climate change, in the form of sea level rise, play a role?  The ground beneath that area of Florida is very porous. When the streets flood the seawater enters from below, not over sea walls. This building, dating back to the early 90s, may not have been designed with today's conditions in mind.  The question becomes how many other buildings face the same predicament and what can be done about it?

The city needs to invest in technology that can determine which buildings are at risk of collapse due to geologic processes, said Keren Bolter, a Florida-based geoscientist at the engineering firm Arcadis who has advised the Federal Emergency Management Agency on hazard mitigation.

“It's very sad that people are forced to be reactive. We're constantly putting out fires. I think there's a systemic problem we have,” she said. "Investing in preventative measures instead of reactive responses saves lives, money and time.”

I wonder how hard it's going to become to obtain insurance on these properties? In Vancouver, many condos are finding insurance rates almost unaffordable yet government regulations require coverage be maintained.  If a property becomes uninsurable, mortgage lenders won't touch it and condos become difficult to sell. Prices plummet. It's a vicious cycle.