‘Margins against failure were too narrow from the start.”
An image from the NIST animation of the Surfside collapse.
Five years after the terrible and tragic Surfside condominium building collapse, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published its technical report detailing a timeline of the disaster, stating that the Champlain Towers South building had been vulnerable from the start. Federal investigators noted that while the initial failure occurred when the pool deck’s concrete slab warped and spread weight to nearby columns, eventually causing a cascading collapse of the entire middle and east parts of the tower, there was no singular event that prompted the disaster.
Instead, they pointed to a slew of design and construction defects that were exacerbated by management decisions and corrosion to the structure over its 40-year lifespan. Deviations from the building’s original design during construction only complicated matters, and when heavy planters were added to the pool deck and other additions made to the building, suddenly the margins of failure, already narrow from the start, became razor thin. The report’s findings show that the pool deck failure began in two connections between garage columns and the pool deck by early June before cascading to other parts of the structure. The gradual failure was fully realized just over two weeks later on June 24, 2021, when half the building was reduced to rubble − killing 98 occupants.
The aftermath of the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse. Courtesy, NIST
“When building structures are designed and built to required codes and standards, they have margins against failure, meaning they should be able to support much more load than they are expected to bear,” the NIST’s co-lead investigator, Judith Mitrani-Reiser said in an accompanying video to the report that includes drawings and animations. “In the case of Champlain Towers South, however, these margins against failure were too narrow from the start.”
The NIST team is still working on a final report that will include specific recommendations for building codes and condo associations to help ensure something like this never happens again.
Local and federal task force crews continued to work day and night at the collapse site of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside. As of July 10, 2021, 11,595 cubic yards of rubble had been removed from the site. Courtesy, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue
The real understanding and impact of the tragedy exists at the intersection of construction, regulation, insurance, and building stewardship. As insurance broker Matt Mercier wrote in the Insurance Journal late last month, Surfside has completely changed “not only the way buildings are inspected and maintained, but also how insurers evaluate risk and how boards approach their fiduciary responsibilities.” We’ve chronicled in this LMA newsletter the changes in building inspections and reserve requirements since mandated by the Florida Legislature.
We’ve all seen the shockwaves that have reverberated through the Florida condo community – the old “defer and delay” mindset from associations has been rightfully lambasted, and new milestone inspections and mandatory reserve funding have given both associations and underwriters a better understanding of a building’s health and the funding needed to maintain it. In many ways, Surfside serves as a warning for what can happen when small issues stack up and critical risk goes unaddressed. While no one could’ve predicted the level of devastation these small cascading failures caused, the wider condo landscape will forever bear the mark of Surfside and use the sad lessons to forge a much safer future.
LMA Newsletter of 7-6-26
