The Champlain Tower , weeks after the collapse in Surfside, announced that its structure was safe and that several inspectors validated this.
Allyn Kilsheimer an expert in structural safety of buildings, with experience in cases such as the collapse of the twin towers on September 11, 2001, who charged the municipality of Surfside more than a million dollars to study the causes of the collapse of the tower Champlain South.
Kilsheimer told a local press, “I would allow my children and my grandchildren to live there.” In that sense, he had to evaluate the North Champlain tower and at that moment, his verdict was clear.
In the case of the residents of the North Champlain tower, they were given the option of staying in their homes, or going to seek temporary shelter elsewhere with the costs paid by the Miami Foundation, but most of them decided to stay.
However, in mid-January, a process of structural reinforcement of the building began, through which temporary columns that support the weight of the twelve floors were placed in the underground garage.
For its part, the building association sent a statement to the owners of the apartments, on January 19, indicating that the temporary columns were placed “in an extreme precautionary measure”, to complete a structural inspection and reinforce the permanent columns.
It should be remembered that the rescue of the Champlain tower is due to the fact that just over seven months ago, South Florida was experiencing the worst tragedy in its history. In the middle of the night, without warning, a luxury tower collapsed leaving 98 dead.
So far no certain cause for the collapse has been given, the most widely held opinion is that the 12-story building collapsed due to a fatal combination of poor design, poor construction and poor maintenance over the years.
This being the cause, the doubt obviously arises as to what is happening with the North Champlain tower, the sister building of the collapsed one, also 12 stories high, built in 1981 with an almost identical design.
In this regard, other structural engineers who have evaluated the case indicate that saying that the structure of the north tower was firm was premature.
And although everyone agrees that there is no immediate risk of collapse and that living in the building can be considered safe, they do not rule out the need to do maintenance work on the columns and reinforce them. Source: Infobae.
