Reports of leaks and flooding in the parking garage of Champlain Towers South stretch back decades. It has not been determined that water problems contributed to the building collapse that killed at least 11 people and left about 150 missing, though a forensic engineering expert said it is possible.
“There was always water there,” said John Turis, who was in Brooklyn when the Surfside, Fla., condominium building collapsed. “There was always water in the garage. There was always water leaking — it used to leak on my car all of the time.”
William Espinosa, who said he oversaw maintenance at the building from about 1995 to 2000, told CBS 4 Miami that saltwater would seep through the building’s foundation during particularly high tides. Employees would use two large pumps to force it out, he said.
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“The water would just basically sit there, and then it would just seep downward,” Espinosa said. “I’m talking about a foot, sometimes two feet, of water in the bottom of the parking lot, the whole parking lot.”
Espinosa said that when he alerted building managers to the rising water, they said the issue had been going on for years and they did not take action.
“But I go, ‘You know that it’s endless,’ ” he said. “And I go: ‘This is just not normal. I mean, this is just too much water.’ ”
Henry Koffman, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Southern California who has worked in forensic engineering for nearly 30 years, said consistent garage flooding could have contributed to the collapse, though it is unclear whether it did so in this case.
“It’s surely not good,” he said. “Standing water or any kind of water, you need to get it out right away.”
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Koffman said it sounded like the waterproofing on the concrete slab failed, allowing water to seep through the concrete and damage its reinforcing steel, possibly leading to the collapse.
“The cracks exposed the reinforcing steel; reinforcing steel got all rusted out. It lost all its structural integrity,” he said. “I think this is probably what happened.”
Frank P. Morabito, an engineer who inspected the building, warned in October 2018 that he had discovered “major structural damage” to a concrete slab below the pool deck in the section of the building that collapsed Thursday, records show. He said in the October structural report that waterproofing below the pool deck and entrance drive had failed, allowing damaging leaks.
Several witnesses reported seeing water flood the parking garage shortly before Thursday’s collapse. A valet parking attendant told Local 10 that at least one car had to back out of the garage because the space was filling with water shortly before the building fell.
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An unnamed commercial pool contractor told the Miami Herald that he had visited the building about 36 hours before it collapsed, to assemble a bid for the pool’s cosmetic restoration. He was struck by the amount of standing water present at the garage, the concrete’s cracking and the rebar’s severe deterioration, the news outlet reported.
Share this articleShareTwo days after that contractor reported his findings, according to the Herald, residents who escaped the building said they encountered a flooded garage while they fled the site.
“The stairs were all full of rubble,” resident Susana Alvarez told NPR. “I don't know where I came out to, but there were cars that were all, you know, with rocks and stuff on them, crashed. And there was water — a lot of water.”
Ofi Osin-Cohen, women’s philanthropy director at the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, told NBC’s “Today” show that the water in the garage was up to her ankles by the time she escaped the building, where she lived with her husband, Barry Cohen, a Surfside commissioner from 2014 to 2016 and vice mayor from 2016 to spring 2018. The couple were some of the first survivors to make it out.
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Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue posted a video to Twitter on Thursday evening showing emergency crews wading through shin-high water in the garage as they looked for survivors.
With questions emerging about what led to the building’s collapse, Surfside officials designated a longtime engineer, Allyn Kilsheimer, to conduct an investigation. The review will include an examination of the building’s foundation, concrete and leaks.
While many are hoping for one definitive answer, Kilsheimer said the investigation probably will uncover several factors that led to the devastating event.
“Probably 90 percent of the collapses we’ve dealt with, other than things caused by bombs and planes, have been multiple things all going wrong at the same time,” Kilsheimer said.
But Koffman, the civil engineering professor, said he would not necessarily call this a perfect storm.
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“I don’t think I would use that terminology,” he said. “Obviously it was something wrong, and especially if that engineer came out two years ago said that there’s problems and it just wasn’t properly addressed.”
Koffman estimated that the collapse investigation would take six to 12 months.
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