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Mass casualty building collapse in Miami

shadow_operative2.0

By shadow_operative2.0
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Jiggy-Z

Jiggy-Z 3432

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

I'm no engineer so I'm not going to be able to offer anything like a real explanation of the specific structural failures, but from a quite insane number of hours wasted years ago trying to rebut 9/11 truthers I can tell you that (1) it is absolutely impossible to secretly wire up an occupied building for demolition, and (2) building collapses tend to all look basically like that because gravity pushes straight down. At a very basic level, buildings are heavy as shit and it takes a lot of strong materials working together as a system to hold them up. When part of the system fails and leads to a partial collapse (e.g. the top floor falling), the damage from that can cause the rest to fail and you'd get what you see here.

It just takes one weak link.

From my mundane CSB case files:  We built an enormous detention pond in San Antonio with huge concrete walls.  In order to have access into the pond for cleaning and future debris removal and servicing, we built and additional triangle/ramp shaped wall parallel to the long side of the exterior pond walls.  The earthwork contractor back filled between the walls and we poured a ramp on top of his backfill.  Pretty simple.

Normally when using select limestone base as back fill, very little work is required to get passing compaction especially when properly moisture conditioned beforehand.  We have passed densities without even using a roller on occasion.

So months later I was shocked when the ramp paving failed.  They tried to pin it on the concrete, but all of our stuff was inspected and tested.  Upon further inspection, the base material that was installed was so loose that voids settled leaving a cavity below the paving which eventually failed.  Earthwork contractor did not have his stuff tested, and if he had it would have failed.  So they had me fix his work and redo my work, for a nominal fee.  I made it especially painful for the earthwork contractor since it would have been so easy to do it right the first time.

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smuggs
smuggs

This is rich coming from the guy who's own fucking temple lies in ruin. 

Deej
Deej

Say "conc." one more time  

Jiggy-Z
Jiggy-Z

Does not appear to be a sinkhole from other video footage, but who knows. Two recent collapses: Minneapolis Bridge over the Mississippi and Hard Rock Cafe in New Orleans had ongoing work at the t

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BearSchlong

BearSchlong 8098

Posted
Posted

Obviously it was a hit on the Paraguayan first family . . .

Paraguay President Mario Abdo Benítez's ministry of external relations told CNNE that they have not been able to locate the first lady's sister nor her family and consider her to be missing after the building collapse in Surfside, Florida. 

The sister of first lady Silvana López Moreira lives with her husband and three children on the 10th floor of the partially collapsed building.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 45960

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46 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

If you look at this picture, you can see large portions of the building are supported by fairly thin columns on the ground level to accommodate duck-under parking.  In LA, these are referred to as "soft-story" buildings, and were a major contributor of apartment building collapse during the '94 Northridge quake. 

I'm an engineer, but not a civil engineer.  That said, I've done a significant amount of design and test of large product packaging (think refrigerator-sized multi-ton packages) for earthquake sustainability.  One thing that surprised me when I started digging into that field is the fact that most earthquakes feature lateral shear waves, not up/down vertical shifts.  Design to resist lateral motion is quite different than design to resist vertical motion, and it wouldn't surprise me at all that thinner columns in LA would be a very bad idea.  In Miami?  Probably fine, assuming the building isn't overloaded by sheer weight.  (That said, wind loads are also lateral, so design against high winds does get closer to design for high seismic activity.)

I'm half spit-balling here, though.

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Captainant

Captainant 27677

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Looks like Igor picked the wrong day to get Rudy disbarred.  And the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.  

 

Lev Parnas is in the mix too - real weird that they get a second act after getting arrested for felony campaign finance violation in favor of a certain individual and getting looped into his impeachment trial too.

Man, 2021's writers are already getting lazy.

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bolverk

bolverk 29683

Posted
Posted

Do y'all remember the leaning tower of South Padre?

A $125 million lawsuit over the failed project is pending. Construction stopped in the summer of 2008 after the building settled by more than a foot in some spots, cracking beams and columns.

https://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/Leaning-tower-of-South-Padre-to-be-torn-down-1532407.php

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Orale

Orale 1087

Posted
Posted

I was volunteering in Port au Prince, Haiti fall of 2009. I stayed a week in a 9 or 10 story building the organization had in the Petionville neighborhood. It completely collapsed in the earthquake a few months later killing a friend of mine. I still shudder whenever I think about it. /CSB

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C-Man

C-Man 27230

Posted
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3 hours ago, DanRydell said:


Construction defect claims have to be brought within 10 years of the building’s completion in Texas and I’d bet Florida has the same thing. So if the building was actually completed in 1981, any claim against the builder, contractors, engineer, architect, etc. lapsed 30 years ago.

Was going to post this. My commercial insurance is rusty but all commercial construction policies went out 10 years following completion. I honestly don't know what happens when they collapse after that period is over. There is a master policy covering the building for loss for whoever owns it now. I think "construction defects" are excluded causes of loss on those policies, though.

 

2 hours ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Must have had a really low occupancy.  Given the time any residents would have been in the building.

It looks like the front of those units was sheared off, not the entirety of the unit. I would guess those are the living areas rather than bedrooms, which would likely account for a lower casualty number since it collapsed in the middle of the night. I am completely out over my skis on this.

 

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Woof.  Is that a fairly new thing?  Non-residential only?

Seems like the product of really effective lobbying.  

Not new. Same with residential. After a certain point, a contractor/construction company's liability runs out and it's on the owner moving forward.

 

45 minutes ago, Jersey Man10 said:

Has Angie Varona checked in as safe?

The good news is she'd almost certainly survive even if buried in the rubble by her tremendous ass.

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BearSchlong

BearSchlong 8098

Posted
Posted (edited)
24 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I don't know, but looking at those columns at the corners, they seem awfully small for a building that size.

I'm not an engineer and have zero construction experience, but I did take a real estate porn tour of Miami Beach last month, that place has fascinating architecture.  Always wondered what it would be like in one of these buildings during a hurricane, this is taken by the government cut jetty looking N.

Honestly was not surprised at this morning's news.

 

Miami.jpg

Edited by BearSchlong
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C-Man

C-Man 27230

Posted
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5 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

Just horrible stuff. On lunch break so SIAP…

It looks like a damn demolition…wtf?

Posted twice already. LOL

Some posters have pointed out when a building fails it will look like a demolition simply because the materials are so heavy and held together by all kinds of shit that the natural motion is for them to fall straight down.

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm an engineer, but not a civil engineer.  That said, I've done a significant amount of design and test of large product packaging (think refrigerator-sized multi-ton packages) for earthquake sustainability.  One thing that surprised me when I started digging into that field is the fact that most earthquakes feature lateral shear waves, not up/down vertical shifts.  Design to resist lateral motion is quite different than design to resist vertical motion, and it wouldn't surprise me at all that thinner columns in LA would be a very bad idea.  In Miami?  Probably fine, assuming the building isn't overloaded by sheer weight.  (That said, wind loads are also lateral, so design against high winds does get closer to design for high seismic activity.)

I'm half spit-balling here, though.

The term you're describing here is shear walls.   Taking those lateral loads, and distributing them into large planar surfaces that can handle the applied loads.

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Prepuce of Doom

Prepuce of Doom 21074

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31 minutes ago, BearSchlong said:

Always wondered what it would be like in one of these buildings during a hurricane

If you don't have friends or family elsewhere to ride it out with, you hang out in the interior hallway with all of your shithead neighbors, venturing into your apartment only when necessary and as quickly as possible. 

A friend of mine whose place was in a similar building probably a half mile away with an ocean view had his hardwood floors ruined by water coming in underneath his patio sliding glass door and getting trapped between the subfloor and the hardwood during a hurricane. To replace it afterwards he had to rotate the entire contents of his home, room by room, one at a time. It was a huge hassle. 

And for the poster who reminded us of "because New Orleans" when describing the shitshow aftermath of the Hard Rock collapse, "because Miami" is a very similar phenomenon - arguably worse... 

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Grimas

Grimas 669

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Posted

Wife has a friend from high school that lived on the 8th floor and is missing.  We were in Miami earlier this week and were supposed to meet up with him but couldn't coordinate a meet and now wife is taking it hard we didn't meet up while we were there...

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BabaYaga

BabaYaga 15299

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34 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

If you don't have friends or family elsewhere to ride it out with, you hang out in the interior hallway with all of your shithead neighbors, venturing into your apartment only when necessary and as quickly as possible. 

A friend of mine whose place was in a similar building probably a half mile away with an ocean view had his hardwood floors ruined by water coming in underneath his patio sliding glass door and getting trapped between the subfloor and the hardwood during a hurricane. To replace it afterwards he had to rotate the entire contents of his home, room by room, one at a time. It was a huge hassle. 

And for the poster who reminded us of "because New Orleans" when describing the shitshow aftermath of the Hard Rock collapse, "because Miami" is a very similar phenomenon - arguably worse... 

All the condos near where we were staying had those metal hurricane storm shutters.  Like a metal garage door for the outside windows.  Felt like I was getting ready for "The Purge" when we dropped them down.

Makes the house extremely dark, and with wind and rain, I imagine loud as hell too.  Count me out....

Roll-Down-Shutters.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

 

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Rip76

Rip76 4928

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, Grimas said:

Wife has a friend from high school that lived on the 8th floor and is missing.  We were in Miami earlier this week and were supposed to meet up with him but couldn't coordinate a meet and now wife is taking it hard we didn't meet up while we were there...

Oh man.

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AUS-97HORN

AUS-97HORN 11765

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

Oh man.

we just have to hope that since its so early, there are several people duplicated on the list, and its also possible that some folks are away on a vacation somewhere and not seeing the news so they havent checked in yet.

 

thats how this normally goes when disasters happen.  I vaguely remember something like 7,000 people being marked missing from the Twin Towers the next day.   It wasnt until a few days went by that the number steadily fell to the roughly 3,000 it ended up being ( still fucking horrible).

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105151

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8 minutes ago, AUS-97HORN said:

we just have to hope that since its so early, there are several people duplicated on the list, and its also possible that some folks are away on a vacation somewhere and not seeing the news so they havent checked in yet.

 

thats how this normally goes when disasters happen.  I vaguely remember something like 7,000 people being marked missing from the Twin Towers the next day.   It wasnt until a few days went by that the number steadily fell to the roughly 3,000 it ended up being ( still fucking horrible).

Yeah.....it may not be that bad....but it's still gonna be plenty bad.

And that collapse sure looks like it started at the base.  If it was an explosion (purposeful or accidental), there would be reports of people hearing it, and we'd likely have seen some sort of flash/dust etc. immediately before the collapse.  I would suspect that the focus is going to be on failure at the base somewhere....but it's going to take a LONG time to get down there.

This is going to end up being a pretty fucking awful story.

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JFKFC

JFKFC 4882

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Posted
1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Some posters have pointed out when a building fails it will look like a demolition simply because the materials are so heavy and held together by all kinds of shit that the natural motion is for them to fall straight down.

The middle section that fell first likely yanked the supporting rebar out and down with it. That other section that fell seconds later pancaked straight down with no support.

Here are some of the missing:  

 

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Zeus

Zeus 6033

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Posted
8 hours ago, deadshank said:

Years ago when Hurricane Rita blew in across Galveston and on into Houston, Anderson Cooper was reporting live at the Galveston Convention Center out in front of the porte cochere facing the seawall.  
 

We installed the tile roof on the porte cochere and the tower tops way up high.  We used all sorts of stainless steel screws and mechanical fastening techniques per engineering specs to make the tile roof as wind resistant as possible.  
 

I was at home watching the live CNN reports and thinking “I hope our danged roof doesn’t fly off on national TV.” 
 

Per the reports we got, the roof actually held up very well until the roof next door flew off and acted like missiles when it hit the roof we installed and subsequently tore the everliving piss out of it. It was a total loss.   
 

/csb

This is about the only non-custom paver system I trust down here in Gtown

https://wausautile.com/media/product-files/LOK-Down Brochure.pdf

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Trey3216

Trey3216 15346

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah.....it may not be that bad....but it's still gonna be plenty bad.

And that collapse sure looks like it started at the base.  If it was an explosion (purposeful or accidental), there would be reports of people hearing it, and we'd likely have seen some sort of flash/dust etc. immediately before the collapse.  I would suspect that the focus is going to be on failure at the base somewhere....but it's going to take a LONG time to get down there.

This is going to end up being a pretty fucking awful story.

I'm going with a coked out, drunk off his ass dude ran into one of the pillars as he accelerated during a cardiac event.  

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conVINCEd

conVINCEd 21469

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Posted
1 minute ago, Enchubben said:

I’m assuming its better to be at the top when it collapses and fall down 12 stories than to have 12 stories of apartment fall down on you correct?

Why don’t you put up some flyers in b/cs looking for volunteers and run a little experiment.

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Horn Dogg

Horn Dogg 3902

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Enchubben said:

I’m assuming its better to be at the top when it collapses and fall down 12 stories than to have 12 stories of apartment fall down on you correct?

I’m not Mensa smart, but I think you’re a fucked chicken in either scenario.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89675

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Jiggy-Z said:

On second thought, it sure looks that first collapse did not start at the top and pancake its way down.  

My favorite conspiracy theory so far is that the Navy fucking around and causing that earthquake led to it.

Also: Internet sleuths claiming there is no (or little) rebar in the building.

Edited by atomheartbevo
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mchookem

mchookem 16336

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Posted
46 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I remember the tsunami was the opposite of 9/11. I remember thinking, "Wow, that might end up killing thousands of people!"

The final tally was 227,898

not to derail but of all disasters, natural and otherwise, anywhere, anytime...tsunamis freak me the fuck out. 😳

i have had recurring dreams for years about massive, inescapable water.

you ever want to watch some freaky disaster porn just google tsunami videos. 😐

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