09/30/2025
Reviewing latest updates from (9/9/2025) regarding the Surfside collapse. Their technical work is wrapping up and will conclude by EOY. I will be presenting on some of these findings at my upcoming talk for the International Concrete Repair Institute’s national convention next month. 1) The residents would have potentially had up to 7 minutes to evacuate between initial collapse of pool deck and progressive collapse of tower. The building not all collapse at once, and this is consistent with physical evidence of HR that my team found onsite. 2) The bulk of the reason that this thing collapsed is due to poor structural design as well as construction defects. For example, the reinforcing steel design was not up to code. And the actual installation didn’t even meet the design. In some locations the as-built strength capacity was less than 50% of the building code requirement. Concrete corrosion and lack of maintenance played a part, but in general this building’s fate was decided 40 years ago. 3) Evidence of building settlement was observed in multiple locations starting 4 weeks prior to collapse, in the form of jammed (stuck) sliding glass doors, exterior gates, and new cracks forming in the plaza planters. Easy to see in hindsight, but would not have been obvious at the time. Google “NIST Surfside” and look for their September 9th update for more.
