Florida building collapseFlorida Condo Collapse – Searching for Answers about What Went Wrong in Surfside Can Improve Building Regulation
How does a building stand for 40 years and then collapse, perhaps with little or no warning? Why did it collapse so that part of the building stayed up, sparing many lives? It might take months or longer for engineers to find answers to these questions. But those reports, when they do come, are important because engineers can use them to improve building codes and other safety measures – and hopefully prevent future collapses.
The collapse of a huge condominium building near Miami, Florida was shocking news to wake up to on the morning of June 24, 2021. It is one of the worst building collapses in recent U.S. history.
I am a professor of engineering and have been studying structural failures – and the lessons people learn from them – for about 25 years. My colleagues and I from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Concrete Institute will be studying this tragedy to figure out what lessons we might learn.
How does a building stand for 40 years and then collapse, perhaps with little or no warning? Why did it collapse so that part of the building stayed up, sparing many lives? It might take months or longer for engineers to find answers to these questions. But those reports, when they do come, are important because engineers can use them to improve building codes and other safety measures – and hopefully prevent future collapses.
How Does a Building Collapse?
A collapse needs only two things – the right conditions and a trigger.
The conditions that make a building weak could be design errors, construction errors or corrosion. In this case, 40 years of corrosive ocean air may have degraded steel, concrete and other materials. Triggers can be natural events – like an earthquake or a tornado – or man-made like a bomb or collision.
So why, after standing 40 years, did the building in Florida collapse?
To look for clues about the condition of a building, engineers often start by reviewing all available records. In this case, the town of Surfside, Florida, quickly released a number of key documents for the public to access. These include the building plans from 1979 and a nine page report documenting a structural field survey carried out in 2018. It is unusual for engineers to get a field survey report because these usually aren’t done or are only provided to the owner. It will probably prove very useful in understanding the building’s condition before the collapse.
