The big news this week: NIST Releases Technical Findings on What Caused the 2021 Partial Collapse of Champlain Towers South
What has changed or should change as a result of the findings? The NIST technical report has taken a long time to arrive, but many of the issues were already messaged, e.g., last year's preliminary report. A new feature for me from this week's report was the early warning signals that something was amiss with the structure. It takes technical expertise to understand the significance of these signals, a level of expertise that residents and visitors cannot be expected to possess. Is there an opportunity to create eyes and ears among non-experts, especially those living in aged structures, who should do this, and how should it be done?
This was from last year's interim report.
"Two clear questions coming out of this investigation are why the design and construction problems were not discovered when Champlain Towers South was built, and how do we evaluate the structural safety of existing buildings?" said Bell.
While the video presentation does not offer recommendations for changes to codes or practice, it does highlight some areas that industry experts could consider. These include how special inspections that are mandated for safety might impact construction quality control by giving builders a false sense of security that someone else will catch their errors later.
Mitrani-Reiser also shares that the investigation found no records from the original construction of the building, and few from its early life, and notes the importance of records retention going beyond initial drawings to include "quality assurance records and, particularly, peer review reports where they exist."
Finally, Mitrani-Reiser calls on the engineering and construction professions to take seriously the apparent lack of quality control and quality assurance found in the case of Champlain Towers South. She noted that, "this tragic event has revealed flaws in our systems, and quality is at the heart of it."
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Mitch Winkler P.E.(inactive), M.ASCE
Houston, TX
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