A Cancer Spread Through the Building. Champlain Towers Had Evidence of Major Structural Damage.

sent to her October 8, 2018. Although the board had known of leaks, cracks on columns and slabs, chips falling from balconies, standing water in the underground garage deep enough to float cars and a host of other problems, the building was still standing, was still basically sound, right?

Now here was a report that stated the building had never been designed properly, a ground floor  should have been sloped to drain the water. The building had major “major structural damage.” The building was in bad shape. Along with electrical repairs, it was going to take at least $9.1 million to fix it – more if additional damage was discovered during remediation.

Owners of condominium buildings could not be less interested in picking up bills for unexpected repairs, especially repairs this extensive. And condo boards don’t keep this kind of money in the treasury. The residents would be charged a special assessment.

The residents, already paying monthly fees that should have covered maintenance and repairs of the building were not happy after getting hit with a whopping assessment. It was time to kill the messenger. The condo board members were replaced. “We lost one year in the process,” says one resident, quoted in USA Today.

On April 9, 2021, 30 months of the rot spreading through the building like cancer, the new president of the condo association’s board of directors, Jean Wodnicki, was to deliver even worse news to the residents. The deterioration had indeed proceeded “exponentially” just as  Morabito had warned in 2018. “When you can visually see the concrete spalling [see question below about spalling below] that means that the rebar holding it together is rusting and deteriorating beneath the surface,” said Wodnicki in a letter to residents.

“A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now,” adds Wodnicki. “We have discussed, debated and argued for years now,” referencing the bickering that started in 2018 with the Morabito report and a dysfunctional board with a history of turmoil that had cycled through five presidents and vice presidents in the past five years, according to local news station.

Since the 2018 Morabito report, the situation had gone from bad to worse. There were even more repairs to be made. The estimate of repair, structural and electrical, had jumped to $16.2 million. The board had a little over $700K it could chip in, meaning the residents would now have to pay over $15 million total -- an average of $100K per resident.

Following are additional questions and answers regarding the Champlain Towers building collapse.

How does spalling indicate structural damage?

Spalling, where a piece of concrete breaks off, can be mistaken for a superficial flaw by lay people, but for a structural engineer doing a building inspection, it can be red flag.

Spalling can result from corrosion of reinforcing steel in the presence of water and oxygen which form iron oxide (rust). The rust takes up more space than its constituent parts and will form crack in the concrete, weakening the concrete and causing patches to spall, or fall off. Exposed rusty rebar, stained concrete, cracks parallel to rebar, chunks of concrete missing can all indicate compromised structural components underneath, according to Damage of Concrete and Reinforcement of Reinforced-Concrete Foundations Caused by Environmental Effects, by Zoran Bonic, et al, published in International Scientific Conference Urban Civil  Engineering and Municipal Facilities in 2015.

But concrete doesn’t need rebar to rust for it to be weakened. It can be weakened with only water. Water was abundantly available at the Champlain Towers South building from leaks and flooding. In the presence of moisture, concrete will swell from a reaction between highly alkaline cement and reactive non-crystalline silica found in many common aggregates. The alkali-silica reaction (ASR) causes expansion by forming a hygroscopic gel of sodium silicate (Na₂SiO₃) which swells when it absorbs water, exerting pressure in the concrete causing cracks and spalling. In its advanced state, concrete affected by ASR, commonly referred to as concrete cancer, shows as a network of cracks on the surface of the afflicted member.

Cracks and white mineral deposits appear in the photos of the Champlain Towers South, and mention of “leaching of calcium carbonate deposits” is made in the Morabito report.

Cracks parallel to reinforcement can also result from thermal expansion/contraction, according to Josh Porter, structural engineer and owner of Consult Engineering on his Building Integrity YouTube channel.

A structural engineer tells of inspecting a condemned building in San Francisco with concrete so damaged that he could he could crumble it with gloved hand.

What about the other Champlain Towers in the area? Are their residents in danger?

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett met with worried condo officials of the two other Champlain Towers the weekend after the collapse of Champlain Towers South and, although the city has not ordered evacuation of the other towers, he said he would not spend a night in either building. Champlain Towers North, built one year after the doomed Champlain Towers South, was built by the same company and uses the same design and materials but did not have the saltwater flooding in the underground parking area, according to William Espinosa, the building's maintenance manager between 1995 and 2000 in an interview with CBS Local News. Champlain Towers East appears to have a similar design to Champlain Towers South but as it was built 15 years later – and possibly with different construction and material – it may have more time on the clock. We have not determined if the remaining towers have below grade parking levels have a pitch, allowing water to drain, unlike the Champlain Towers South. Both buildings would have the same exposure to the frequent flooding and salt in air and water that cause corrosion and weakening of steel and concrete.

In a rush to forestall further disaster, Miami-Dade officials have conducted an emergency audit and put 24 structures on a list to receive violations for unsafe conditions at the time of this writing. Champlain Towers East and North are not on the list, and as far as we know, most of their residents remain inside.

Why did the building owners delay structural repairs for so long?

That seems to be big question. Condo boards, in charge of building repairs, almost never have civil engineers on board and lay people cannot be counted on to understand structural damage, which often a danger hidden below the surface. They may be more sensitive to costs in deference to building owners and likely to pass off damage as cosmetic what a building inspector or knowledgeable civil engineer would know to be cause for alarm. Landlords and condo boards may maintain a constant tension between residents’ demands for repair and minimizing ongoing expenditure, acting only when they have to. In the case of the Champlain Towers South, the board was clearly driven by the upcoming recertification demanded by Miami-Date County.

“You don’t wait 40 years to do your building. The code requires you to maintain the building as you go. Every year, you need to scrutinize the building, anything that is coming up needs to be done,” Pistorino told local news. “You don’t wait for 40 years.”

The 40-year recertification, which came into being after the failure of the 49-year old DEA (more on that later), is being questioned in light of the Champlain Towers disaster.

“We have 100-year-old concrete buildings in South Florida that have stood the test of time,” said Pistorino to the Miami-Herald. “If you maintain it, and fulfill your obligation to take care of it, it will last. Problems occur when owners or condo boards resist spending money except on interior assets rather than the underside of the building.”

What does sea water rise have to do with the Champlain Towers collapse?

The sea water used to come up from the ground, says maintenance manager William Espinosa. 

“Any time that we had high tides away from the ordinary, any king tide or anything like that, we would have a lot of saltwater come in through the bottom of the of the foundation,” says building maintenance manager William Espinosa, who had two "large pumps" to try and remove the water. “But it was so much water, all the time, that the pumps never could keep up with it, they would burn out.” The water would stay there for days, sometimes up to two feet deep, so high cars would be floating.

Espinosa says he raised his concerns about the water to the building manager and was told not to worry about it. He was told to keep using the pumps, even when he told them it was a problem "every month." Sometimes the water was so high, cars in the underground parking space would float.

Asked if the similarly designed Champlain Towers North suffered similar flooding, Espinosa said it did not. 

Is the sky falling over Miami Beach?

The severity of the Champlain Towers South disaster has brought attention to recent and nearby structural failures, several documented by WPTV.com. While the number of failures might suggest the area is prone to building failures, whether it is any more or less than other seaside communities with high rises is still questionable.

January 2017, a roof partially collapsed in northwest Miami-Dade County, trapping two people inside.

In June 2013, an outdoor deck of an Miami Beach restaurant filled with people watching the Miami Heat playoff game collapsed into Biscayne Bay.