its collapse is live with us next. DI 98, but only at Mesa. Now next week
marks two years since the
catastrophic of Champlain
Towers, south in Surfside. This
week investigate, Towers with
Nest, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology updated
findings. That suggests the
condo building was doomed from
the day it opened in 1980. One
of some two dozen hypotheses
under scrutiny. The leading one,
they say now focuses on a subset
concrete pool deck that
collapsed 7 minutes before half
the building, killing 98 people
within. Judith Riser is Nist’s
lead investigator overseeing
that massive science probe right
there with us live today. Judy
MITTROMNEY riser. Great to have
you aboard the program. Thank
you very much, Glenn. Nice to be
here. Thank you. So takeaway
listening to this, hours of
updates, you and your colleagues
presented this week. The
takeaway really was that focus
on the pool deck substandard
conc also and then violations of
the code both in the 1980s, late
seventies and eighties and
violations. What would be
violations of even current code
? Is this something that a
revelation to nest we kind of
heard bits pieces of that almost
for two years. Sure Glenn. So
what we want our takeaway to be
from this week’s meeting that
when we reach preliminary
findings from and evaluations
that are factual, that we can
present to the public we are
going to do that at a regularly
advisory committee meetings. We
want the public to hear that. We
have over two dozen of either
hypotheses that are in multiple
states of status, whether They
be probable possible, unlikely
or disproven. You heard about
some the evidence that we’re
using for just one or a couple
of a few their hypotheses. So
there’s hypotheses and theories
are not interchangeable words
right theory is you see some
things and you have theory about
it. Hypotheses are. You haven’t
seen anything yet. You just kind
of putting out a process to
follow. Is that right? Sure So
are our hypotheses to doesn’t be
there hypotheses both include
failure, initiation and then
failure progression and we to
make sure that we are looking at
every possible high apotheosis
that could have led to the kind
of collapse we saw. And
Champlain Towers south so many
of these hypotheses we from
preliminary evidence or findings
also many members of our of your
public and our public have
submitted their hypotheses for
us to follow through on through
our data submission. And I
encourage others do the same. So
these all avenue issues that we
are tackling so that we can
reduce the number of possible
and probable hypotheses to
hopefully one or a very small
set of them. Can you us what
we’ve heard the focus and what
the leading hypothesis is pool
deck issue. Can you give us a
couple more that think really
might take you somewhere? So
there are many. And as one of
our advisory committee,
Professor Jack, maybe described
so well on Thursday, we’re
looking both failure hypothesis
hypotheses that could have
initiated in the pool deck and
then caused a progression of
that we saw. We’re looking
potential initiation in tower
then could have progressed and
what we saw so the point is that
we’re trying to tackle what are
all conditions that could have
been in place to lead to the
collapse we saw and we are using
images, we’re using videos,
we’re using lighter using
satellite data and imagery or
physical evidence in the
warehouse. Our interviews have
been absolutely incredible, so
helpful. Those that have already
spoken us and have provided so
information of the knowledge
that they had, the building,
their experiences in the
building and the history, the
building sometimes over decades
. We’re also using a lot of our
analysis and essentially looking
structural engineer, technical
analysis to help with our
failure hypotheses and also our
materials testing, which heard
some about this week. The
concrete you say materials
testing and my thought was what
really caught my attention was
this concrete mix that was very
part of code and very standard
in the early eighties but there
was no durability test and so a
building on the water and salt
air it was not a durable kind of
concrete and so that kind raises
the question I don’t where where
we live right now there I’m
going to say hundreds of
buildings built over the past
decades probably with a very
similar concrete mix on in the
same conditions, the same
erosion, the same shifts of land
. What what is what this is
doing is so applicable to so
buildings as we speak should.
People worry. Well, we’re trying
to understand in a holistic
sense. So the trauma mix that
you heard about is us
essentially trying to recreate
the type of concrete we’re
observing from, the evidence
that we have in the warehouse.
So we’re recreating this
concrete so that we can build
mockups of sections of CTS and
essentially test them in a
laboratory, test them to failure
a laboratory to verify what
we’re seeing in our analysis. So
that’s just one part of it. The
other part of it is the invasive
testing, right? So the last time
we met with our advisory
committee, you heard that we
waiting to re to acquire
additional warehouse space so
that we can begin our invasive
testing now. So you can think of
a what we’re doing here as you
know like health diagnostic, you
would start with nondestructive
things you might like if you
went to the doctor you might go
and, you know, get your blood
work done and kind of just a lot
of information to try see what’s
going on with this very, very
complicated system. Your body
and diagnose correctly the
source of the issues. And so
then might do something more
invasive a biopsy right. And so
the coring that we’re doing
right now or we’re taking pieces
of or samples from evidence and
testing them, failure what we’re
doing there, really trying to
understand properties that were
in part of CTS. And once we
combine all of our
non-destructive testing and our
destruct testing, we see a much
better of the health of the
building just prior to its so
that we can improve our analysis
and then verify all of that with
the testing that we described
last week. Understood. Yeah In
the minute that we have I know
you had mentioned that you’re
part of the meetings with
families know we’ve we’ve spoken
to family members who aside from
devastated forever really
frustrated at the pace of
everything and angry and going
through those kind of emotions
and you’ve sat in on those
family meetings and without
breaching any kind of what is
your take away as you give
information to those closest to
this. Sure those meetings are
difficult because we that
families the public want answers
quickly but we also have to a
very thorough investigation and
so that we’re getting to the
source of the that may have led
the initiation and progression
of this if we get this wrong
then our recommendations what
addressing the correct issue and
what’s really. Paramount in
these next two year national
construction safety team is the
best locations are the
recommendations that come out of
them. We this very long
implementation process as for
those recommendations we want to
make sure that if we’re changing
standard of practice, if we’re
changing building codes, we want
to make sure making the
appropriate and it doing a very
thorough investigation and
tackling failure hypotheses that
are more probable or possible
but then also tackling those
that are less probable and
possible just be sure that those
are not avenues that we should
have been exploring. You really
have to look at this really
family of potential issues that
could have contributed to this
collapse so that we can the most
appropriate recommendation is
when we’re done a really
monumental Judith MITTROMNEY
riser with so glad to have you
aboard today. Appreciate your
time. Thank you, glenn. I