This past week, Hurricane Nicole, a Category 1 storm, forced residents in more than a dozen condominiums near Daytona Beach from their homes because officials declared the buildings unsafe.
In September, Hurricane Ian caused more than $40 billion in
damage across Florida. To cover the bill, it's widely
expected insurance premiums are going to go up in the
Sunshine State.
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Raysa Rodriguez: and there was a small balcony. So I stepped
out and my brain just couldn't compute what I was looking
at. I said to myself, "where's the building?" You know,
screaming at this time, "where's the building?"
The elevators were gone. The stairwells clogged with
concrete.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And there's no way for you to get out of the
building at this point?
Raysa Rodriguez: There's no way for me to get out and I
think I just snapped into, "Okay, this is the situation. I'm
terrified. I don't wanna die tonight..."
So Rodriquez, started navigating a way down. Helping an
elderly neighbor through dark hallways and over the debris
in stairwells.
It took more than two hours before they reached a floor low
enough to be rescued with a ladder.
Today, this is all that is left of the building, a concrete
scar in the ground. The names of the victims are listed on a
fence that surrounds the site. It includes retirees and
young families.
Raysa Rodriguez: People went to sleep that night. In the
safest spot in-- their world is your home. Your bedroom it
wasn't the safest spot in the world.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What answers do you want?
Raysa Rodriguez: What answers I want? I want the truth for
my friends who died. They deserve an answer.
The answer could be in this massive Miami warehouse where
the remnants of Champlain Towers, 800 tons of it, are being
stored.
The facility is off limits to anyone except federal
investigators, who provided us with video. They have started
combing through the twisted steel and concrete for clues.
Glenn Bell is one of the team's lead investigators. Bell
spoke to us from the headquarters of the National Institute
of Standards and Technology, the agency conducting the
federal investigation.
Sharyn Alfonsi: When do you think we will know why the
building collapsed?
Glenn Bell: So our timeline for this investigation was to
finish our technical findings by the fall of 2023. Then we
have to work on our report and recommendations. And we're
looking for that the fall of 2024.
Sharyn Alfonsi: A lot of people in Florida can't understand
why this is taking as long as it is.
Glenn Bell: I want them to know that we're working as fast
as we can. And the implications for our findings are huge.
We have to get this right.
Based on what's found, Bell's team will recommend any
necessary changes to building codes or construction methods
nationwide.
Glenn Bell: We have-- over 600 pieces of the structure that
we're gonna be doing a lot of testing on. And the more that
you put together, the more the pieces of the puzzle begin to
emerge and stories-- emerge.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What is the story that's emerged at this
point? What do you know?
Glenn Bell: Right now we're pursuing about two dozen
hypotheses about what the causes may have been.
Among the possibilities are shoddy construction, bad design
or faulty materials. Bell was on the engineering team that
investigated the collapse of the World Trade Center
following the 9/11 attack and came out of retirement to try
and solve the Surfside mystery.
Glenn Bell: I've been investigating failures for over 40
years. And this particular investigation I can say is one of
the most complex and challenging that has ever been
undertaken.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Why is that?
Glenn Bell: Sometimes in building failures, the immediate
causes are relatively apparent. We have no such apparent
cause in Champlain Towers after well more than a year.
Investigators started scanning pieces of the debris into a
massive 3D database last spring. Preliminary lab tests on
building materials began in August. Glenn Bell told us if
investigators discover anything that poses a danger to other
buildings, they will reveal it immediately.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is it possible after the investigation's
complete that you won't know what caused the building to
collapse?
Glenn Bell: I'm confident that we will. But it will take a
long time.
Back in Surfside, Allyn Kilshiemer told us the investigation
doesn't need to take two more years. He was hired by the
City of Surfside hours after the collapse to conduct its own
investigation.
Allyn Kilshiemer: We have to get to the trigger. I always
say a building talks to you if you know how to listen to it
alright. And it finds a way to support itself or it finally
says, "I give up. I can't support it. I'll fall down."
Kilsheimer, a renowned engineer, was part of the
investigation after the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11
attack on the Pentagon.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So where are you in the investigation right
now? How far along?
Allyn Kilshiemer: We're about eight months behind of where I
wanted to be…
That's because Kilsheimer is still negotiating with the
federal investigators for permission to do his own tests on
the building samples locked up in that warehouse.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is this unusual?
Allyn Kilshiemer: I've never run into it before.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Not with the Pentagon? Not with the Oklahoma
City bombing?
Allyn Kilshiemer: I've never run into it before. It's very
unusual.
It took until this past August before Allyn Kilsheimer was
allowed to do this, his first big on-site test.
We watched as his team used 350 tons of steel plates to
measure how much load the structural pilings at the site
could handle.
Allyn Kilshiemer: This building sat there for a very long
time. Right? It's been there for forty years It's full of
people for 40 years. It has cars in it for 40 years.
Buildings just don't fall down.
With neither Kilsheimer or federal investigators providing
answers, survivors and victim's families have come up with
their own hypotheses. One – is that weeks of vibrations from
construction of that oval-shaped condo next door somehow
compromised Champlain Towers South. A 2019 email from a
resident to the city complained the digging was, "…too close
to our property and we have concerns regarding the structure
of our building."
Sharyn Alfonsi: Some of the people who lived in the towers--
have expressed a lotta concern about vibrations of the
building that was next to it being built. Is that something
that you're looking into?
Glenn Bell: These are just one or two of the many failure
hypotheses that we're pursuing. But we definitely are
looking at it very carefully.
The companies that built that condo were among the
participants in a $1.1 billion settlement with survivors and
victims' families. The insurers for the project paid $400
million, but said the development had no role in the
collapse. The deal is no comfort to Shannon Gallagher. She
lives in a condo thats next door to new construction in
surfside.
Sharyn Alfonsi: This building's how old?
Shannon Gallagher: 1965.
Sharyn Alfonsi: 1965. How safe do you feel in it?
Shannon Gallagher: I don't. I don't.
Gallagher is worried about the potential of vibrations from
work planned just below her and has asked a Florida court to
intervene.
Shannon Gallagher: So you see this little two-story
building? This building is gonna be replaced with a building
that's actually gonna be significantly taller. It's gonna be
about 158 feet. You can literally feel vibrations when they
were working on that building and it's a further lot away.
And you could-- you could be standing and feel the building
vibrate.
Sharyn Alfonsi: I can hear people who live in Manhattan say,
"We build right next to each other. What's the problem?"
Shannon Gallagher: I understand development. But there's
gotta be some thought for who you're building next to.
Families of the victims have also accused the condo board at
Champlain Towers South of not immediately repairing major
structural damage. In a 2018 report, an engineer hired by
the condo board flagged failed waterproofing below the pool
deck and cracking in columns in the garage.
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Eric Glazer, Esq. |
Eric Glazer: Doesn't anybody think
eventually these buildings are gonna need repair?
Sharyn Alfonsi: And now the bill's come due.
Eric Glazer: And now the bill's come due.
The scrutiny of condo boards pushed Florida's legislature to
pass sweeping condo laws.
The new requirements include structural inspections by
engineers or architects for condos three stories or higher.
Any recommended fixes must be made and condo boards will
have to set aside enough money for future repairs.
Eric Glazer: Now you are having situations in Florida where
people on a fixed income are going be asked to come up with
thousands of dollars and they don't have it.
Sharyn Alfonsi: How will this change who comes to Florida,
who lives in Florida?
Eric Glazer: Well, the days of grandma and grandpa, who are
s-- solely on social security, coming to Florida and
thinking that they're gonna move into a condominium, that's
gone forever.
Glazer expects the developers. who have already transformed
much of South Florida's coast into a canyon of glass and
steel, will look to buy out older condos that can't afford
repair. Then, tear them down and replace them with a more
profitable luxury condominium.
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Robert Lisman |
As part of the settlement with
homeowners, Raysa Rodriquez told us she got less than market
value for the condo she lost.
$70 million was paid to lawyers who represented survivors
and victims' families.
As for the property where Champlain Towers South once stood?
It's been sold for $120 million to a developer from the
Persian Gulf, with plans to build a luxury condominium.