Miami Surfside apartment that collapsed, killing 98 people, had a faulty pool deck

Investigators investigating the collapse of a Miami apartment building that killed 98 people say the pool deck suffered a “severe lack of strength.”

Preliminary findings have shown that the property, where 55 of the 136 units in the 13-story tower collapsed, failed to comply with other codes and ignored early warning signs over the deck.

A 2018 technical report pointed to problems with the pool deck, which were described as major at the time.

Officials at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have not reached any conclusions about the cause of the collapse at Champlain Towers South.

A report on the root cause and possible recommendations for updating codes and standards is expected to be released in 2025.

In a new summary of the report, the NIST said the pool deck had “critically low margins against failure.”

Investigators say the portion of the deck that collapsed seven minutes before the rest of the tower fell in the early hours of June 24, 2021 was seriously underdesigned.

They noted that the problems began with pervasive weaknesses in the structural design, were exacerbated by misplacement and corrosion of the deck reinforcing steel.

It also stated that adding planters and heavy pavers exposed the weak points to more weight, as these had not been accounted for in the original designs.

Rescue teams searched the rubble for weeks for survivors, and the Sunshine State later enacted laws requiring condos to pass structural inspections and fully fund their reserves.

The remaining section was demolished on July 4 when the site became too dangerous for rescue teams to continue searching for the missing.

Those who died ranged in age from 1 to 92 – with the oldest victim identified as Hilda Noriega who lived in apartment 602.

Glenn Bell, team leader of the study, said: ‘The design failed to meet codes and standards and the lack of compliance was most serious in the pool deck structure.

“Even without any sudden overload or apparent cause of failure on the night of a collapse, conditions on the pool deck at the time posed a serious safety risk to the building.”

Researchers are still considering two dozen failure hypotheses, but are working to rule out theories — and say they currently believe the pool deck is the most likely starting area of ​​the collapse.

Ken Hover, a Cornell University professor who is working on the official investigation, said investigators have so far found no evidence of an explosion, a car crash in the garage or any other extraordinary event that could have triggered the collapse.