Apparently, the swimming pool is an increased area of focus as to possible reasons for the collapse:
I hope those who died never really knew what was happening other than thinking it was a bad dream. Itās sad.
Weāll still be buying a condo though if we find an island we want to snowbird on. At the very least weāll still be staying in them when we travel places and arenāt camping. We never stopped flying after any air crash and the vast majority of buildings out there are still standing. I highly suspect this incident will keep people wary about the safety of buildings so if they see something they do something rather than putting it off.
My heart goes out to all the families and friends who didnāt make it - or did and could have nightmares for the rest of their lives. My heart goes out to any who are involved, including rescuers.
Seize the day. One never knows.
7 Likes
Itās not just structural problems that concern me about condos. I just hear so many issues with how theyāre run. You always have that one person who is difficult. Itās just not Wyeth the hassle to me. But poor quality of construction IS common in condos.
6 Likes
Which can also occur with any Home Owners Association
5 Likes
For sure: it is amazing the power trips that people have on HOAs. The two that I have served on or participated in resulted in several lawyers being hired by warring factions and nothing getting done. But many HOAs hire building or property managers, who are supposed to look after maintenance and structural issues, even while the owners are bickering among themselves.
I am curious, though: are condos built any worse than, say, an office building from an engineering/design/construction perspective? The ones weāve owned or occupied have had developers who were responsible for the building for years until after the last unit was sold. We ran both of them through the wringer to get things fixed, and they did. These developers/contractors had been around for ages and had great reputations.
1 Like
I am interested in speaking to my BIL who is a civil engineer. Last time I talked to him, we discussed the Hard Rock Cafe building in New Orleans that collapsed about 18 months ago. He said that it will take years to sort out the lawsuits. He knows the architect and people on the construction team. This will be so much worse to figure out. I pray for their families.
Isnāt the HOA made up with residents? Can residents sue the HOA if the HOA is made of residents?
Yes. It would be a derivative lawsuit.
The difference lies in the maintenance. An office building is managed by an entity that is used to owning commercial real estate. A condominium is managed by its owners. Even if managed, the management company can only propose, the Board disposes and makes decisions. The concern lies in whether the members have the knowledge and willingness to increase assessments to cover maintenance costs.
3 Likes
If residents win for a monetary compensation, where does the fund come out of? Would it be coming out of their own pocket?
Insurance. Condominiums, if properly insured would carry a master insurance policy on the ābricks and sticksā, a commercial general liability policy, and a directors and officers liability policy.
1 Like
Oh they can and do sue. My D the forensic engineer absolutely agrees with @Peruna1998 that deferred maintenance is a problem. Thereās complicated agreements laying out who, resident or association, pays for what parts of maintaining a condo building. Of course the association is funded by the residents, so really itās just a matter of how the expenses are divvied up. When thereās a big expensive repair required, thereās going to be a fight. D has frequently mentioned the problem of residents fighting over the cheap repair vs. the best repair and even repairs of any kind being delayed because the association canāt provide the funds. It plays out in lawsuits, and recalls of board members and all manner of fights. Itās especially bad when the needed repairs really only affect some residentsā units but are the responsibility of the association and require a special assessment to fund the work.
Those agreements are called Master Deeds/Declarations in Tennessee. I write and review them. They actually create the real property interest that is a condominium. So, they are kind of important.
1 Like
I donāt quite understand all the technical terms. However dust settles in the end, if it is due to lack of maintenance, arenāt the owners responsible, directly or indirectly, either through insurance or otherwise? I also donāt see how tax payers should be on the hook to bail out. It looks like a pretty well to do community. High rise on the ocean front with an ocean view canāt be cheap.
Why would taxpayers be āon the hookā here?
I hope this was some bizarre phone misfunction and not a call for help that couldnāt be answered:
1 Like
Taxpayers are not responsible. The HOA is a non-profit corporation for liability reasons. Each Unit Owner is a member of the corporation. The corporation is governed by its board of directors which is elected by the members. The board has certain fiduciary duties provided by the associationās governing documents and applicable law. The question is whether the board was negligent in carrying out those duties. It is unlikely that the board has personal liability, but the association may.
That looks analogous to various levels of government, where people expect the government to maintain something or provide some service, but do not want to pay the taxes to pay for that maintenance or service. Or do not agree that the maintenance or service is needed, or fight over how it should be done differently, or resent paying for maintenance or service that is helpful only to some people other than themselves.
7 Likes
Former CC poster aibarr, a forensics structural engineer in Houston, gave me permission to share her post about the collapse:
Okay, so letās talk about this report from 2018, because it sure paints a horrifying picture.
The way Champlain Towers was constructed was with some underground parking layers, and then at ground level there was whatās called a āPlaza Level,ā and then the tower was built above the plaza level.
This report, written in 2018, was handed to the condo association. Among other things, it says the following:
-
Thereās an appalling amount of cracking throughout the concrete slab that the plaza level is comprised of. Recall that this is the slab THAT IS HOLDING UP THE BUILDING.
-
Whomever did epoxy injection the first time to fix things screwed it up and it didnāt work.
So, okay. Letās back up.
If youāve been hanging around my feed for any length of time, you know the following things:
ā¢ Concrete has steel rebar in it to reinforce it
ā¢ Thatās because concrete is fundamentally rock pudding; it is cheap and pourable and does decently under crushing loads, but the instant you try to put it under tension, it cracks like a piece of chalk
The other thing you have to remember is that this building is ON THE DANG BEACH. So, I mean, ask someone in Minnesota why nobody cruises around in classic cars during the wintertime and theyāll tell you that SALT IS THE ENEMY OF STEEL.
points to ocean SALT
points to concrete plaza deck STEEL
This is why structures near the ocean are either wood or concrete. You canāt put exposed steel right next to the ocean unless youāre slightly obsessed with repainting it every year or so. Bury any steel you need in a couple of inches of concrete, please. Thatās your protective coating, and it does a good job.
Moisture plus air plus steel equals rust, and salt is the gasoline on the fires of corrosion.
When someone tells you that you have pervasive cracking throughout the concrete deck thatās holding up your seaside structure, the concern isnāt particularly that itās cracking. Concrete cracks. Thatās kind of a given. The issue is that the cracks open up all the way down to the reinforcing steel.
Worse, they tried to fix it previously, but they cheaped out and called out Amateur Hour Incorporated to do the job. Those guys didnāt seal all the cracks, they left injection ports behind, they did a half-assed job.
To fix it properly would have been about a $2M repair.
Thatās a paltry $12,500 per dead person.
āā
Iāve written about four āSTOP EVERYTHING AND FIX THISā big red button letters over the course of my career.
I catch some crap each time I write one. I get called alarmist. I see the eyes rolling. I get brushed off, I know.
Not one situation for which Iāve written a big red button letter rises to the degree of potential catastrophe as what I would consider Champlain Towers to have been.
When I send a big red button letter, I sign it and seal it and, if itās not taken seriously by my first contacts, I toss it at every email address I have thatās associated with the project. It comes with phone calls. It comes with Come to Jesus meetings. Sometimes it comes with yelling and threats of reports to the building officials. Heck, I throw my professional liability carrier under the bus: āIām sorry; I could have my coverage cancelled if Iām not a complete pain in your ass about this 
ā but I do not let up.
I AM A BONA FIDE PAIN IN EVERYBODYāS ASS when I write a big red button letter, and I badger them YEARS later until the situation has been resolved to my satisfaction.
I canāt accurately tabulate the quantity of people who just completely failed the victims here.
$2M. A measly sum on the grand scale of major building maintenance costs.
Throw every one of these bastards into the basement of a very tall seaside jail, fire building maintenance, and let them contemplate the ruthlessness of gravitational potential energy for the rest of their natural lives.
I am rage personified.
25 Likes
Wow! Thank you for posting this.
Heads will roll, Iām sure. I wonder if any of the responsible parties lived or died in that building.