Two dozen Miami-Dade County apartment complexes, including two owned by the county, were placed on a list for unsafe structure violations on Monday following an emergency audit of the area, days after a condominium building crumbled to the ground last week.
The 24 structures failed to secure required recertifications after 40 years, according to the Miami Herald, which cited county records. The inquiry was initiated roughly 48 hours after Champlain Towers South, a 12-story structure that contained 136 units, partially collapsed on Thursday and was reduced to a 30-foot high pile of rubble. The building was in the process of receiving its 40-year recertification at the time of the incident.
The Little River Plaza, which has 88 apartment units, made the list and was cited in 2015 for overdue lighting improvements that were needed in its parking lot. Similarly, Ward Tower 1 also appeared on the violation catalog. Both were erected in the 1970s and are owned and operated by Miami-Dade County authorities.
MIAMI CONDO BUILDING NEEDED $9 MILLION IN REPAIRS PRIOR TO COLLAPSE, EMAILS SHOW
Local leaders have faulted a lack of federal funding for the poor upkeep. Michael Liu, the housing director for the county, said the area is roughly $10 million short on an annual basis, which has forced authorities “to make difficult choices based on severity and threats to health and safety.”
A total of 11 people have been pronounced deceased, up from nine on Monday, with over 150 still unaccounted for as fire rescue personnel continue to parse through the rubble to locate Champlain Towers South survivors, officials said on Tuesday. Questions have been raised about the cause of the collapse after several public records were released by the city of Surfside that suggested the building was in need of imminent repairs.
The structure was quoted for approximately $630,000 in electrical repairs, $254,000 in structural costs, nearly $3.2 million in remediation of the building’s facade, and $3.8 million pertaining to repairs of the garage and pool deck, according to emails from Morabito Consultants in 2018. Correspondence also pointed to failures in “concrete structural” slabs on the pool deck and said a lack of action could have led to extensive “deterioration” in the building that dates back to the 1980s.
“The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” the emails read.
The new records follow the public release of a report from the same construction firm that suggested “major structural damage” existed on the property in October 2018.
The “major structural damage” was in the concrete slabs below the pool deck, and there was “abundant” cracking in the columns, beams, and walls of the parking garage, which is under the 13-story building, Morabito’s report found.
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President Joe Biden is set to visit the collapse as early as Thursday.
“The response and support we have received from federal, state and other partners over the last six days has been unprecedented – and I am deeply thankful
@POTUS will be visiting the site of this tragedy to spend time with impacted families and first responders,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava wrote in a tweet.
The Miami-Dade Unsafe Structures Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
