Five years after 98 people lost their lives after the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside collapsed, the town will host remembrance events on Wednesday to honor the victims and show support for survivors.
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The day began with a Lighting of the Torch Ceremony at 1:15 a.m. at Veterans Park in partnership with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
The Daytime Ceremony will follow at 10 a.m. adjacent to the building site.
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Structural damage began weeks before Surfside condo collapse
Federal investigators on Monday released their technical findings on what caused the collapse of the building that killed 98 people.
In an hour and seventeen-minute video, the lead investigators from the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Construction Safety Team explained how it began in early June, just weeks before the collapse on June 24, 2021, when two connections between garage columns and the pool deck failed.
“When building structures are designed and built to required codes and standards, they have margins against failure, meaning they should be able to support much more load than they are expected to bear,” co-lead investigator Judith Mitrani-Reiser said. “In the case of Champlain Towers South, however, these margins against failure were too narrow from the start.”
Cracks grew, and loads were redistributed in the pool deck over the next few weeks, transferring their load to other structural elements that were not strong enough to support them due to the original design and construction of the building, investigators said.
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That ultimately led to the larger collapse at 1:22 a.m. on June 24.
According to the report, the southern pool deck edge became unseated from a supporting wall, causing a slab to sag and break away from the middle tower face. The slab break damaged two supporting connections.
“When the connections between the pool deck slab and these two columns in the garage below failed, it increased the loads on neighboring connections, eventually causing them to fail as well,” Mitrani-Reiser said.
The report also makes clear what did not cause the collapse. All things that have been alleged — vibrations from nearby construction, foundation failure, sinkholes, and storm surge effects — have been ruled out as playing a part in the collapse.
“Throughout this investigation, we have kept top of mind those who were most directly impacted by the collapse of Champlain Towers South,” co-lead investigator Glenn Bell said. “We appreciate everyone who has helped with this work, including the survivors and the families of those who were lost. With their invaluable input, this effort will help make other buildings safer and help prevent tragedies like this from happening again.
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