Miami area condo collapse

[bcla]

Supposedly there was construction activity on the building when it collapsed.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article252324218.html

 

[quoo]

oh no that's awful

 

[Malfie Cent]

I saw a video of it collapsing and it is shocking, and there was a still of a room half gone and just bunk beds covered in rubble left there. Heartbreaking.
It happened at 1:30 in the morning, all I can think is that when they go through it there will be many more victims

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Good coverage here (pics and video)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html

Prayers for all those affected by this tragedy.

 

[Kittyblue]

Oh my gosh that's heartbreaking! The photo of the bunk beds... Praying if there's survivors they find them quickly.

 

[kdonnel]

At first I thought perhaps the balconies and outer wall fell, then I saw the video of the collapse. It is an entire wing of what was an L shaped building. Half of the units in the building are gone.

I read where the building was undergoing a 40 year inspection and roof work.

 

[JimMIA]

So far there is only one confirmed dead, but we're afraid there will be many more. The latest guess is that there are 51 residents unaccounted for.

WPLG in Miami has a very graphic surveillance video of the collapse, but I'm not going to link it. First, a large part in the center of the building collapsed, and then a remaining North wing of the building fell a few seconds later. There are more than 130 apartments in the building and I'd estimate that close to 1/2 of them are gone. When you view that video, you know there are going to be a lot of deaths.

One good thing we have going for us is that both Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and Miami Fire Rescue have some of the best urban search rescue specialists in the world. They both send teams whenever there is a big earthquake or other disaster overseas.

 

[JimMIA]

For those who are familiar with South Florida, this tragedy happened in the small town of Surfside at approximately 87 Street and Collins Avenue. Surfside is between the northern part of the City of Miami Beach and Bal Harbour.

The condo was directly on the ocean, and literally on the boundary between Surfside and Miami Beach -- 87th Terrace shown below is the boundary and the 8701 Collins property is in the City of Miami Beach.

I'm not familiar with that particular complex, but the satellite picture looks like there were two buildings and one complete building (circled in red) collapsed.

 

[kdonnel]

Everything to the right of the thick black line is gone!

 

[Heather07438]

So hard to understand how something like this could happen. Sad

 

[bcla]

At first I thought perhaps the balconies and outer wall fell, then I saw the video of the collapse. It is an entire wing of what was an L shaped building. Half of the units in the building are gone.

I read where the building was undergoing a 40 year inspection and roof work.

It certainly looked like the front face just sheared off, but now that I look at it, that's just part of a single building collapsing, but leaving behind part of the building still standing.

 

[JimMIA]

It certainly looked like the front face just sheared off, but now that I look at it, that's just part of a single building collapsing, but leaving behind part of the building still standing.

It's actually the rear of the building. From looking at the street view and an "after" pic, it appears to be one building (not 2 as I thought), and at least half of it is destroyed. A middle-rear part fell first and then the NE part of the building collapsed a few seconds later.

 

[bcla]

My thought (having rented a condo almost as if it were a hotel) is that maybe a lot of these units weren't occupied because they're either vacation units or they weren't rented out. I understand that summer isn't the peak season for vacation rentals because the weather can be pretty nasty.

 

[JimMIA]

Here's a better picture, showing exactly what @kdonnel was talking about above. Note the position of the pool in the various pictures to get a perspective of which direction the picture is taken from. The pool is in the lower left.

This picture is looking NE to SW. The fire and police units on the right are west of the building, on Collins Avenue, and the beach/ocean are out of the picture to the left.

 

[JimMIA]

My thought (having rented a condo almost as if it were a hotel) is that maybe a lot of these units weren't occupied because they're either vacation units or they weren't rented out. I understand that summer isn't the peak season for vacation rentals because the weather can be pretty nasty.

Hopefully you are right, and I do think that will be a factor. A LOT of condos in that area are either vacation homes or AirBnB's, and this is a slower time of the year for us than the winter months.

That said, Miami no longer has the total feast or famine vacation seasons like we formerly had. Remember that summer for us is winter in South America, and we also get a lot of European visitors in the summer months.

 

[JimMIA]

The most recent numbers seem to have been holding for a number of hours:

• 1 person known dead
• 55 persons rescued from the building
• more than 50 apartments destroyed
• 99 people believed missing

Obviously there are huge numbers of local and state agencies working to sort things out and provide support for families trying to locate loved ones, displaced people, etc -- way too many to mention. The American Red Cross has been on the scene for a while and AirBnB is working with the state to place folks in temporary housing. FEMA also apparently has a liaison team coming in as well

 

[mylilnikita]

Has anyone seen the footage of the actual collapse that a nearby building’s camera caught it?

 

[AnnaS]

Praying for everyone. Can't wrap my head around this and curious to find out what caused/might have caused the collapse.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

absolutely heartbreaking.

 

[JimMIA]

Has anyone seen the footage of the actual collapse that a nearby building’s camera caught it?

yes. I described it above but did not link it.