Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 83 posts

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#41

Post by acomjean »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #24
BobbyJo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be a bad assumption. In some circumstances, inspectors with ties to construction companies may have incentives to add to the sales funnel, but I believe, anecdotally, that inspection companies tend to have no ties with construction companies to avoid the optics of exactly what you are describing. Anyone that's ever gone to a mechanic knows getting inspection come from the place that's supposed to do the wo…

While I understand your concern your viewpoint is naive. Civil engineering is a relatively close knit field (as are many fields). Possibility for kickbacks is definitely there. Something that has really put me off of license requirements is the relish that I have seen inspectors take in telling people they're going to need tens of thousands in renovations to bring a home up to code. Some of these items are things lik…

I worked for a civil engineering firm. You are typically hired by and owner to draw up plans. You put jobs out for bid but the contracts are between the owner and the construction company.

Insurance and the threat of lawsuits keep the engineering part of the business pretty clean.

I think your conflating them with city inspectors which come by and make sure construction is up to code.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#42

Post by mdoms »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #39
mdoms wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd be comfortable to live in a high rise building for which an independent engineering report contained the following text? The joint sealant was observed to be beyond its useful life and are in need of complete replacement. However, the waterproofing below the Pool Deck & Entrance Drive as well as all of the planter waterproofing is beyond its useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replac…

That statement is buried on page 7 of the report, no bold text. Yet, above it on page 6 a reminder to follow OSHA-approved window washing techniques is in bold. Given the context and formatting, this warning seems more like a pro-forma CYA than anything else.

I think when you pay an engineering firm thousands of dollars for a report you tend to read the whole thing. What is it that doesn't jive with the NPR article? The report does indeed call out major structural damage. The report warns that without remediation the damage will spread, exponentially.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#43

Post by robocat »

Here's the report: https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/docs/default-source/default...

Page 7 talks about the parking garage: "Abundant cracking and spalling of varying degrees was observed concrete columns, beams, and walls. Several sizeable spalls were noted in both the topside of the entrance drive ramp underside of the pool / entrance drive / planter slabs, included instances with exposed, deteriorating rebar Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion."

Page 8 has relevant photos.

The NPR article seems to focus on the deck slabs, but they are not particularly load-bearing so are unlikely to be the cause of the building to collapse. Edit: I guess it is possible the failure of a deck slab could collapse the columns inwards, but my guess is that the columns failed (bending or collapsing).

Spalling on columns is a problem, especially if it is due to the column starting to fail.

Disclaimer: I am not a structural engineer.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#44

Post by epistasis »

mdoms wrote: post #30
anonuser123456 wrote: post #19

Having read the report, I am stopping my monthly contributions to NPR. This is straight up quote mining as far as I'm concerned. Nothing in the report would lead me to believe the structure was in imminent danger if I were a resident / board member / inspector etc. This is trash journalism. Edit: I would like to note the following for people following this story: The report author has stated: “among other things, our…

So you'd be comfortable to live in a high rise building for which an independent engineering report contained the following text? The joint sealant was observed to be beyond its useful life and are in need of complete replacement. However, the waterproofing below the Pool Deck & Entrance Drive as well as all of the planter waterproofing is beyond its useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replac…

I didn't downvote you, but my guess is that people, like me, don't find that block of text that damning. The text talks about damage to the slab. It does not connect slab damage to damage that could risk the entire building.

If there is risk that a component failure leads to systematic failure, I would expect that a report would delineate that risk.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#45

Post by yalogin »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #19

Having read the report, I am stopping my monthly contributions to NPR. This is straight up quote mining as far as I'm concerned. Nothing in the report would lead me to believe the structure was in imminent danger if I were a resident / board member / inspector etc. This is trash journalism. Edit: I would like to note the following for people following this story: The report author has stated: “among other things, our…

The good thing about NPR is, you can ask for clarification and they will provide it for you, if you are so inclined, and they will correct it if they are wrong.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#46

Post by MattGaiser »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #34
anonuser123456 wrote: post #19

Having read the report, I am stopping my monthly contributions to NPR. This is straight up quote mining as far as I'm concerned. Nothing in the report would lead me to believe the structure was in imminent danger if I were a resident / board member / inspector etc. This is trash journalism. Edit: I would like to note the following for people following this story: The report author has stated: “among other things, our…

The phrasing from the report: > The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially. I agree that it doesn't say "it'll fall apart right this moment" (and well... it did take like 2 more years), but I would wonder why anyone woul…

I want to know if an analytical monotone is typical for these reports. Would a report like this be expected to emphasize urgency or would the reader be assumed to know that "major structural damage" means urgent?

If I were writing a report on a piece of software for my boss and I found unsanitized inputs to an SQL database, I wouldn't highlight that any more than anything else I found as he would know that was severe.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#47

Post by tenken »

mdoms wrote: post #30
anonuser123456 wrote: post #19

Having read the report, I am stopping my monthly contributions to NPR. This is straight up quote mining as far as I'm concerned. Nothing in the report would lead me to believe the structure was in imminent danger if I were a resident / board member / inspector etc. This is trash journalism. Edit: I would like to note the following for people following this story: The report author has stated: “among other things, our…

So you'd be comfortable to live in a high rise building for which an independent engineering report contained the following text? The joint sealant was observed to be beyond its useful life and are in need of complete replacement. However, the waterproofing below the Pool Deck & Entrance Drive as well as all of the planter waterproofing is beyond its useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replac…

But the pool and deck aren't within/under the residential units, so I'm not sure why that text would be so alarming.

It may be equally likely the next lot underground garage construction shifted the ground near the condo and caused it's collapse.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#48

Post by aurizon »

The owners were tax evaders and bribers. Truth had no place in their vocabulary. They are dead and gone, current owners have to cope with this shitstorm A concrete slab, with water penetrated rebar will progressively fail in an exponential manner because rebar oxidizes = irrestible expansion and progressive expansion of the corroded area. Concrete and steel in these situations turn to dust and gravel with zero residual strength. If the other building has a pool in the same relative position it needs inspection ASAP. If no pool, they may be OK as that mechanism of failure would be absent. That said, the owners were such scumbags that other structural shortcuts may be hidden and will need to be dealt with

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#49

Post by MattGaiser »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #39
mdoms wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd be comfortable to live in a high rise building for which an independent engineering report contained the following text? The joint sealant was observed to be beyond its useful life and are in need of complete replacement. However, the waterproofing below the Pool Deck & Entrance Drive as well as all of the planter waterproofing is beyond its useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replac…

That statement is buried on page 7 of the report, no bold text. Yet, above it on page 6 a reminder to follow OSHA-approved window washing techniques is in bold. Given the context and formatting, this warning seems more like a pro-forma CYA than anything else.

The bold is in reference to specific regulations. Everything bolded in the document is a reference to another document. So it may not be for emphasis but rather reference.

Re: Surfside official told residents building was safe, despite engineer's warning

#50

Post by acomjean »

cm2012 wrote: post #22
KyleBrandt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.townofsurfsidefl.gov/docs/default-source/default...

I can see why the condo didn't jump on this. There's not a lot of urgency on the repairs in the letter, and certainly no warning of "do this or the structure will collapse".

I was on a condo board. “Structual problems” in any report is a major red flag.

Most buildings like this hire a management company to deal talk with the engineers and beside the report let the building know what it happening.

a resident in the article says they took a 15 million dolllar assessment for repairs. So it’s not like it was being ignored.

Also I’m wondering how the building insurers were handled.

We had to replace a beam after extensive water damage in our 35 unit building. The units above were evacuated. Nothing collapsed but between the mold and water damage it was a nightmare.

The building that collapsed had an twin. Supposedly better maintained but it will be interesting to see what’s going on with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us/miami-building-collaps...

Post reply on HN