Investigations into 2021 Surfside, Florida, condo collapse far from over – 60 Minutes

Around 1:30 a.m. on June 24, 2021, 98 folks had been killed when Champlain Towers South, a 40-yr-previous condominium in Surfside, Florida, collapsed. Raysa Rodriguez was on the ninth flooring of part of the constructing that in some way remained standing.

“I am sound asleep, and I hear this awful noise and I didn’t know what it was. It felt like a mountain coming down. And, two seconds later, all I remember is literally being thrown out of my bed and landing in front of the bed,” Rodriguez advised Sharyn Alfonsi for this week’s 60 Minutes. “And there was a small balcony. So I stepped out and my brain just couldn’t compute what I was looking at. I said to myself, ‘where’s the building?’ You know, screaming at this time, “the place’s the constructing?”

The elevators were gone. The stairwells clogged with concrete.

“There’s no way for me to get out and I think I just snapped into, ‘Okay, this is the situation. I’m terrified. I don’t want to die tonight,'” Rodriguez mentioned.

Rodriquez began navigating a approach down, serving to an aged neighbor via darkish hallways, and over the particles in stairwells.

It took greater than two hours earlier than they reached a flooring low sufficient to be rescued from with a ladder.

More than a yr later, all that is left of the constructing is a concrete scar within the floor. The names of the victims are listed on a fence that surrounds the positioning. It contains retirees and younger households.

And investigators nonetheless do not know why the constructing fell.

The reply might be in a large Miami warehouse the place 800 tons of remnants from the Champlain Towers is being saved. 

The facility is off limits to anybody besides federal investigators. They are actually combing via the twisted metal and concrete for clues.

Glenn Bell is likely one of the crew’s lead investigators. He spoke to 60 Minutes from the headquarters of the National Institute of Standards and (*60*), the company conducting the federal investigation.

“Our timeline for this investigation was to finish our technical findings by the fall of 2023,” Bell advised Alfonsi. “Then we have to work on our report and recommendations. And we’re looking for that the fall of 2024.”

“A lot of people in Florida can’t understand why this is taking as long as it is,” Alfonsi mentioned.

“I want them to know that we’re working as fast as we can,” Bell mentioned. “And the implications for our findings are huge. We have to get this right.”

Based on what’s discovered, Bell’s crew will advocate any needed modifications to constructing codes or building strategies nationwide.

“We have over 600 pieces of the structure that we’re going to be doing a lot of testing on,” Bell mentioned. “And the more that you put together, the more the pieces of the puzzle begin to emerge, and stories emerge.”

But so far, Bell and his crew have not discovered any clear solutions.

“Right now, we’re pursuing about two dozen hypotheses about what the causes may have been,” Bell mentioned.

Among the chances are shoddy building, dangerous design, or defective supplies. Glenn Bell was on the engineering crew that investigated the collapse of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 assault and got here out of retirement to attempt to resolve the Surfside thriller.

“I’ve been investigating failures for over 40 years. And this particular investigation I can say is one of the most complex and challenging that has ever been undertaken,” Bell mentioned. “Sometimes in building failures, the immediate causes are relatively apparent. We have– no such apparent cause– in Champlain Towers after well more than a year.”

Investigators began scanning items of the particles into a large 3D database final spring. Preliminary lab checks on constructing supplies started in August. Bell mentioned if investigators uncover something that poses a hazard to different buildings, they’ll reveal it instantly.

“Is it possible after the investigation’s complete that you won’t know what caused the building to collapse?” Alfonsi requested.

“I’m confident that we will,” Bell mentioned. “But it will take a long time.”

Back in Surfside, Allyn Kilshiemer mentioned the investigation would not must take two extra years. He was employed by the City of Surfside hours after the collapse to conduct its personal investigation.

“We have to get to the trigger. I always say a building talks to you if you know how to listen to it alright,” Kilshiemer mentioned. “And it finds a way to support itself or it finally says, ‘I give up. I can’t support it. I’ll fall down.'”

Kilsheimer, a famend engineer, was a part of the investigation groups after the Oklahoma City federal constructing bombing and the 9/11 assault on the Pentagon. But in Surfside Kilsheimer mentioned he is about eight months behind the place he needed to be. That’s as a result of he’s nonetheless negotiating with the federal investigators for permission to do his personal checks on the constructing samples locked up in that warehouse.

“I’ve never run into it before,” Kilsheimer advised Alfonsi.

“Not with the Pentagon? Not with the Oklahoma City bombing?” Alfonsi requested.

“I’ve never run into it before,” Kilsheimer mentioned. “It’s very unusual.”

It took till this previous August earlier than Kilsheimer was allowed to do his first huge on-website check.