The Florida condo building that collapsed early Thursday morning had already been declared unstable, according to researchers at Florida International University.
“I looked at it this morning and said, ‘Oh, my God. We did detect that,’” said Shimon Wdowinski, a professor at FIU who specializes in environmental crises and long-term sustainability.
The land where the condo sat in Surfside, Fla. had shown signs of land subsidence, a gradual or sudden sinking of the Earth’s surface, since the 1990s. A survey conducted by researchers last year found the Champlain Towers South condominium, constructed in 1981, showed clear indications of sinking from 1993 to 1996.
“When we measure subsidence or when we see movement of the buildings, it’s worth checking why it happens,” Wdowinski said in an FIU news release. “We cannot say what is the reason for that from the satellite images but we can say there was movement here.”
While extremely concerning, Professor Wdowinski clarified that land subsidence alone would not likely have caused the building’s collapse. Miami Beach experienced land subsidence at significantly slower rates than other parts of the world the professor has studied. It was, however, a clear warning of the building’s vulnerabilities. Wdowinski hopes to use his research to prevent future catastrophes.
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Surfside city officials said they were never informed of the problem, claiming if a building had “serious problems” they would have known about it.
But the 136-unit condominium building and its owners had been sued repeatedly for poor maintenance. A 2015 case accused the owners of being a slumlord who failed to maintain the building. One condo owner complained of a neglected exterior wall with cracks and water damage. Court records show it was the second time the building had been sued for the same issue.
Miami-Dade County mandates that properties undergo structural inspections for recertification after 40 years. An attorney for the building’s representatives told the Miami Herald engineers had already begun working on the recertification project.
More than 150 people who were inside are still unaccounted for in the collapse.
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