- [Jeff] Hi, everyone.
Jeff here and welcome back to the channel.
Today, I wanted to talk about this article
that the Miami Herald had put out called "House of Cards".
They just launched this last week on December 30th,
the day before New Year's Eve,
which is probably why many of you might've missed it
and not seen it.
So this article is filled with a lot
of great onscreen graphics and animation and all that.
So I want to go through this article with you
and compare their root cause analysis with mine
and show you some differences in the timeline
that they had been investigating.
Now, they had sent me a note on the 30th
when they released this, you know, to alert me about this,
but I had already coincidentally seen it
and a few of us had already been discussing it on the forum.
So after the collapse,
the Miami Herald had already assembled a team
to investigate this.
And they had already included a bunch of engineers.
So over the six months or so since then,
they've been working on these animations and floor plans
and analyzing everything to determine
what they think went wrong.
So in this video, we want to just compare the differences
between what they're saying and what I'm saying.
Now I'm going to put a link to this interactive story
down below for you so you can see it.
I don't wanna steal all of their thunder
and you should actually scroll through it
and watch their entire presentation.
It's actually quite good.
I highly recommend you scroll through
their interactive story
because for those of you who like things simple
and like to have, you know, nice drawings presented for you
in the animation and all that, this will be great for you.
And I wouldn't be surprised if the Herald wins
some type of award for this for investigative reporting.
And so they did a great job showing renditions
of the building and also identifying all of the columns
and everything throughout the garage structure
and even accurately they depicted, like I mentioned to you,
probably on think on the very first video I put up
after the collapse,
I noticed that some of these columns were wider
than the other ones, like over here.
And that was one of the first questions I had.
So I'm glad that they accurately showed that
and they showed how some of them here,
the green ones were wider because they were 24x24".
And then they also showed the ones that were skinnier
scattered around in the garage.
And as you can see, some of them were under the pool deck
where it would not be so much of a problem
if they were that skinny or spindly,
but some of the other ones under the building,
even though they were slightly thicker and beefed up,
when you have columns that are that thin,
you're just asking for trouble, in my opinion.
And not only that leg.
Let's say you have a 12x12 column or a 12x24 column,
in my opinion, having a 12x24 doesn't really buy you much
because the column is only as strong
as its smallest dimension.
So a 12" by 24" column, for example,
or a 12" by 16" column in my opinion,
is still a 12" column in the right direction
if you have the shearing forces
or the load collapsing in the right direction, okay?
So the engineers that the Herald hired
to analyze the floor plans also built out this plan.
You can see all of these white lines
showing all of the beams
and we've studied all of these before.
We've showed you all of this on the floor plans before.
And so what was cool here is not only did they identify
all of the beams and here's my H beam,
my controversial age beam that I talked about
with that mystery column that we found coming out
of the floor over here.
And this proves that I was correct in showing where it was.
I had a number of people that left comments on my video
from back in October, if you remember,
where I talked about this mystery column
growing out of the floor here right next to the H beam
and people were telling me that I didn't have the H beam
in the right place.
And it is.
It's right here as designed in the floor plan,
right along the southern border of the building.
And it didn't move when it fell.
People were telling me, "Oh, I was wrong.
It shifted up a cell when it fell over,
it shifted over a cell."
Or people told me I was over this way.
So you can go back and watch that video.
I'll put a link to it down below for you.
But this proves here that I had it called out
in the right place.
So one of the things that the Herald identified,
which is an interesting topic
that I want to bring up for you,
they identified beams like this here
that were in the original plans as submitted
by the developer to the city of Surfside.
But yet inexplicably, they were removed.
These were left out of the final drawings
that went to the contractor.
So normally, when buildings are designed and built,
you'll see just what we saw here.
The city of Surfside released these floor plans
that you see here that were submitted to them for approval.
Just because you see these floor plans,
this does not mean this is how the building was built.
You often end up
with what's called the submitted floor plan,
we call these the as designed floor plan.
And then you end up with another set of floor plans
that is actually given to the contractor
to actually build the building for you.
Don't ever think that those two
are going to be exactly the same.
There could be minor changes made
from the as designed to the as built.
And then making things worse, folks,
is not only do you have the as built floor plans,
but then you have changes that can happen
on the fly on site when the contractor realizes,
"Oh, this isn't right, we need more rebar here
or we need less rebar here in order to be able to get
the aggregate concrete to fit in there
between all of the rebars."
Or other stupid things happen like,
"We did not have enough rebar delivered today.
All right, let's go to lunch.
And when we come back, maybe it'll be here."
And then they come back and maybe they pour concrete
and they forget to put the rebar in.
So there's so many things that can go wrong
on the site in so many ways
that the building can be built outside of the floor plan.
Yeah, so here's an example.
If you're looking at a floor plan
and it says here I'm supposed to build 16
of these number five rebars
going across this connection to the column.
And then in this direction,
I'm supposed to build 17 of them.
And then in the space in between columns here,
I'm supposed to insert 14 of these number four rods
going across.
But how do you know for sure that was done?
I mean, look as complex as these are,
humans make mistakes or they get lazy,
or maybe not enough rebar was delivered
or the cost of rebar suddenly rose up and they're like,
"You know what, maybe I don't need to put in 16.
Maybe I'm only gonna put in 10."
You know, these kinds of things happen all the time.
So the engineers that the Herald had hired
to analyze everything, they were under the impression
that from day one, there was already problems
with cracks developing around the columns here,
near the pool deck.
But they said that these were latent issues
that you couldn't see because you know, the rebar,
if it's stretched and everything,
it's all inside the concrete so you're not going to see it.
Now, if you recall back in August, Josh,
over at the building integrity channel,
he performed an analysis of loading
on the pool deck around the columns.
And he was shocked to find that the loading,
based on his calculations, was already at about 100%,
which it should never be.
You should always have plenty of room,
especially on a pool deck for things like dynamic loads.
What if there's going to be parties with people on there?
What if you have to bring on like little forklifts
and stuff and other type of equipment to do things?
Like when they brought in
all the pallets of the bricks,
I'm sure they used little forklifts
to drive around on here.
My money is on the fact that over the years,
when they came in and added those other layers of sand
and the paver bricks, and I spoke to family members
of owners of units in here who have told me
that the pool deck always flooded whenever it rained.
So that means water sat there
and probably ate its way into the concrete
all the time, just constantly.
And you remember in my earlier videos from July,
I kept getting suspicious as to why
all of these MLS photos
from the real estate agent's listings,
puddles of water on the deck on a crystal clear day,
where there was nothing going on.
Also the Miami Herald was going to show you
things like this,
how you'd have some minor deflection in the slab,
which also can lead to punching sheer as well.
And they also pointed out that over the years, you know,
numerous different contractors that came in
would put new layers of stuff on top
without necessarily removing the old layers.
And of course, as we mentioned in July
in one of our other videos,
how they came in later and added these Palm trees.
And it was documented that the Palm trees
later had issues with the roots
growing into the pipe systems.
See that?
And so it caused the pipe system to burst
and have leaks and crack.
And so in 2017, as we showed you in a later video,
they had to come in and remove all of these Palm trees
out of the pool deck.
So as you scroll through their interactive article,
make sure you check out their animations
that clearly show where there was weak rebar
and some of these connection places
between the slab and the columns.
So here you had thin spindly columns
that weren't helped at all
by the fact that you had not enough rebar
covering these areas here.
You needed some anti-punching sheer rebar protection.
And in some cases,
they're saying it just simply wasn't there.
The Herald also pointed out about this wall
that went around the perimeter
and that it added a lateral stability
to the entire pool deck.
And I believe that part of the lawsuit
from some of the owner's families
is going to be concentrated on this connection here
between the wall and it maybe wasn't bad to begin with.
Was it weakened by the pounding next door here
when they were building the 87 Park condo
right here on the left?
Part of their animation was pretty good.
It shows how the cars come down the ramp
and that it was right underneath Sara Nir's apartment.
And it shows a lot of animation on their timeline
that they created or showing who went where
and where they were talking and all that.
So make sure you focus on that
because that's key importance of showing who survived,
when, and how they survived.
I mean, before we just gave you a timeline,
like back in July and said,
"This person left the building at whatever time."
But here you're actually seeing it in motion
of who left and when,
how they barely got out with their lives.
So here's the first difference, I think.
So the Herald starts their timeline at 1:00 a.m.,
which is 22 minutes before the building collapsed.
I think the real timeline, as you can see in my video,
the real timeline actually started 36 hours
before the collapse of the condo.
So if you remember back on July 2nd,
one of my earlier videos on this topic here, where I said,
"Here's the cause of the Miami condo collapse."
I've got this incredible postcard view,
this is why people flocked to this building.
Let's form the timeline starting 36 hours
before the collapse.
And what happened was a pool contractor came in
to take pictures, to give a quote for-
Okay, so here's where all of the newspapers that day,
this is like two days after the collapse,
they were showing these photos
that the pool contractor took 36 hours before.
Now, just outside the pool equipment room inside the garage,
the pool contractor said that he noticed
some water puddling on the floor there
around space number 78,
but he failed to get any pictures of it
because it wasn't part of his task.
I bet he's kicking himself for that now.
But note where the water is,
it's right at the bottom of the entrance ramp
into the garage from the street.
And one other thing missing out of their timeline
for the Miami Herald is why didn't they mention,
like I've mentioned before, is that,
so 14 hours before the condo collapsed,
the city of Surfside inspector was actually on the roof.
- Other investigation.
- [Reporter] McGinnis also stressing he saw no warning signs
at an emergency town commission meeting.
- [McGinnis] There was no inordinate amount of equipment
or materials or anything on the roof
that caught my building officials' eye
that would make me alarming as to this place collapsing.
- [Jeff] And here to me is a very vital clue
that I think the Miami Herald left out
on their timeline was this, I mean,
this was all over the news.
This was the next day after the collapse.
Like this man here said his mom heard creaking noises
coming from the condo the day before it collapsed.
See right here he was saying,
"She told me she had woken up at three
or four in the morning and had heard creaking noises",
which you should never hear in a concrete building.
So it was just reported by numerous outlets.
So I think this was an important milestone on the timeline
that probably should not have been left out of the story
because it shows that there was some type
of warning going on.
The building was speaking to people and it was saying,
"Hey, something's wrong here."
That the day before people are hearing noises
in the building loud enough to wake them up.
And while the Miami Herald's timeline started at 1:00 a.m.,
about 22 minutes before the collapse,
they didn't even mention that Sara Nir's daughter
heard noises at 11:00 p.m.
So there's a lot more to this timeline, folks.
And they mentioned that the fire alarm was triggered.
Now as we pointed out in our video here, back in August.
So we did this video here on the 911 calls.
Now this next phone call came in about 10 seconds
after the previous call came into 911.
And this is from one of those alarm monitoring companies.
- [Recording] Thursday, June 24, 2021, 01:16
and 39 seconds.
(machine beeps)
- [Operator] Miami-Dade Police.
- [Caller] Hello, this is Central Alarm Control.
We're calling in a fire alarm for a business.
The address is 8777 Collins Avenue.
- [Operator] 8777 Collins Avenue?
- [Caller] Yes.
- [Operator] What kind of alarm did you say?
- [Caller] A fire alarm.
- [Operator] What's the name on the account?
- [Caller] It is Champlain Towers South.
- [Jeff] Something triggered the fire alarm.
Now was it dust getting picked up
by a smoke alarm somewhere?
Or was it when the pool deck collapsed?
Did it tear through one of the pipes?
And you know, we saw that falling water
from the tourist video,
looking down into the garage from across the street.
So we know that the sprinkler pipes,
apparently it looked like they were compromised.
So sometimes, these can trigger alarms as well,
but are they always going to be audible alarms
when you just have a loss of pressure in the line?
That we don't know.
Now interesting, here's another area where we differ
from the Miami Herald version.
'Cause they even said here,
they compared the column visible here
with the tourist video.
Here's the vantage point the tourist had shooting down.
They did not mention that this third column right here
is the one that is missing in the pile of rubble.
So some people are still debating
whether the column was missing.
I think it is.
And as you folks know,
I proved it for sure that this column right here
was missing in my video.
So here's that video that we shot.
And we're going to show you how I did that overlay.
Oh, and here comes a car out now.
Now look real closely.
You can see all the way to the back,
but in this video I was able to overlay the columns
here on the north tower with the columns taken
from the tourist video.
Well, let's go take a look at that.
What I did here was I took this screenshot
from the tourist video
and identified where all four of the columns
are supposed to go and I labeled it.
How do I know that I'm accurate?
How do I know these are in the correct place?
Well, because I know where three of them are,
but the third one is the one that I claim is missing.
Okay, so what I do here now
is I have this video overlay
from the screenshot of my video that I shot on the 3rd.
Now watch this.
As it morphs in, you see that?
All four of these columns line up.
Right?
So that's how we know
we're supposed to have that third column, right?
So coming back to the overlay, you can see,
I can keep going back and forth between the two proving it.
A lot of people have been saying,
"Oh, there's no column there.
There shouldn't be one."
But look at the spacing between them.
And yeah, it is.
So that's why I was surprised
that the Herald did not point that out
because that is such an important fact to know.
This proves that this was the first column to buckle.
There was no other evidence that shows
that any other column fell first
once that pool deck collapsed.
And it makes perfect sense too
because if the pool deck
and the planter sits right on top of this column,
so everything was already weakened in this area.
It makes perfect sense that the beam
likely rotated, it pulled this way
by the collapsing pool deck,
which probably crumbled this column
when the pool deck collapsed.
See, so here's how they're showing the pool deck
collapsed here.
And here's our column right here,
right in the middle of that planter.
See right here, it's just outside the border
of the building by 20 feet.
And, you know, remember all of this happened
in the course of about seven minutes anyway,
and it was all underneath Sara Nir's condo.
And then they showed a course in apartment 611,
Eliana Monteagudo saw cracks forming in her wall.
So she hightailed it out of there.
She noticed it.
So it seems like anybody that was in the building
that survived, we've got a few of them
that are in this 11 stack.
That's what we call it.
All of these, you know, Unit 111, 211, all the way up.
So you remember over the summer,
I showed you this ring camera video
that was shot from 711.
Okay, so the Miami Herald's engineers
tended to focus now on the slab from the pool deck
and where it meets the rear wall there on the south
bordering that 87 Park condominium next door
would be right over here.
So they then analyzed the slab to the wall connection there.
So here they were able to show all of the steel
that was visible and how it all just looks like it broke.
And then of course, they show the planters
collapsing down into the garage.
And this is that whole area of the pool deck
that Moribito wanted to redo,
wanted to strip everything down
and redo the concrete there and re-slope it down
and add more drains.
And they were basically going
to just make everything really nice again here.
And here's where those missing beams would have been,
had the builder built these in place.
And of course, since the columns here were just very narrow
because they were outside of the building,
they had no problem poking through the concrete slab
of the pool deck.
And we've showed you on other videos during the summer,
all of these columns here were left standing
and perfectly vertical too, pretty much.
I didn't see really any change in them.
So it showed that these didn't collapse,
rather the pool deck just did a punching shear
straight down these columns and the columns stayed put.
So here's another key difference of what they're saying
compared to what I was assuming happened.
So they're showing here that like the rotation
of the support beam along the edge of the building
caused all of these columns to buckle here.
And ironically, they even mentioned the fitness center here
as a starting point, which is interesting,
because I had mentioned that also.
So they were showing it as starting up here
against the sheer wall and the fitness center.
And ironically, I had showed that also over the summer
in one of my other videos.
If you remember this video right here on July 13th,
where here, you'll see, I brought up the subject
of the fitness center
and could it have had anything to do with it?
'Cause it's right over here.
You see here it is in the architect's original drawings.
So the fitness center sits right over the driveway
that's directly in front of spaces 81, 82, 83, 84.
Remember that magical space number 82?
Okay, so here's a look inside the fitness center
and here's the window.
So you know that it's right on that southern edge
of the building that's right up against the windows.
These machines, I'm not so concerned about.
But look at this machine, that's gotta have like,
I don't know, how many stacks of weights they have here.
Probably two or three of them?
That's gotta be a lot plus the incredible heavy weight
of these machines as well.
And then all of these weights over here on the wall,
in the room there.
So that would certainly have me worried
when it's sitting on top of a compromised concrete slab.
So now when you come back and look,
boy, it's no small coincidence, in my opinion,
that that fitness center happens to be.
So you can see great minds think alike
and it didn't take long for both me
and them to come to a similar conclusion in this area.
Yeah, so they think that it just collapsed like that.
Although, I still think the collapse
actually started over here.
Because when you look at the security camera videos,
I think it looks like the center
of the building falls first.
So I think that it started more over this way.
Now, if you haven't seen any of the previous videos
that I've uploaded here on the channel,
showing different topics of the video collapse
and trying to come up with root causes,
make sure you come here and look under our heading here
for engineering disasters, collapses,
and construction fails,
and you'll see the entire playlist there.
And you could just binge watch
to get caught up to speed here.
So thank you so much for joining us today, folks.
And we'll see all of you on the next video.