One more step towards confirming what anybody with half-a-clue has already figured out that this resulted from a structural defect in the pool deck:
Slab that failed at Surfside tower was problem for 25 years | Miami Herald
There was an attempt to try to repair it back in 1997.
"Tong Le, the consulting engineer on the project, certified the $156,602 of structural concrete construction work and waterproofing in a Nov. 20, 1997, letter to the town. "I performed inspection of different phases of the waterproofing of the deck and the repair of approximately … 20 square feet of spalls in the ceiling of the garage," Le wrote. "The repair has been performed under our inspections from the beginning to completion.â€"
Because of the design of the building, which places a lot of stress on the concrete slabs above the columns supporting the tower, Aghayere said the cracking and spalling noted in 1996 would have drawn his attention.
The extent of the concrete damage should have prompted more probing questions as far back as 1996, he said.
The article also gives further reason to hold the original designer/architect liable....that's a no-brainer. They caused the structural defect to be there. The attorney Kohn wants to peg it all on the HOA for not doing a fast enough job cleaning up the architect's multi-million dollar mess. That can backfire....Morabito, an engineer, in his 2018 report, certainly did not even warn that the building would collapse within three years...Morabito just said "major structural damage" would get worse. There's buildings that have stood for decades in spite of having major structural damage...the Morabito report is not necessarily enough to tip off the HOA that the building is about to collapse within the next three years. It was enough to tip off the building inspector that the City needed to enforce its code, though.
The HOA also has tons of people to point the finger at not least of all the architect. Either the architect or the original contractors...it would be nice to get the original plans of the design to see whether that was the architect's design or the contractors did a hack job. Either way, a jury could very well buy that the HOA was as much a victim and at the mercy of the architect's mess as everybody else.
Point being Kohn is a dolt for not including the original architect in as a defendant. Without question, the residents must sue the City of Surfside for negligent inspection, the HOA, the original architect, the original contractor (the architect may have designed it right and the construction company just screwed up), Morabito and Tong Le in their capacities as engineers. After all, the statute of limitations begins to run from the date of injury not the date of the negligent act. The fact Kohn has only limited himself to going after the HOA's insurance policy, when all these other entities have policies that money can be squeezed out of...is absurd. This Kohn guy is clearly playing Checkers and not Chess. That's a damn shame....a major thing like this, and the attorney is a total hack. That's the power of telephone book advertising and commercial billboards.
Slab that failed at Surfside tower was problem for 25 years | Miami Herald
There was an attempt to try to repair it back in 1997.
"Tong Le, the consulting engineer on the project, certified the $156,602 of structural concrete construction work and waterproofing in a Nov. 20, 1997, letter to the town. "I performed inspection of different phases of the waterproofing of the deck and the repair of approximately … 20 square feet of spalls in the ceiling of the garage," Le wrote. "The repair has been performed under our inspections from the beginning to completion.â€"
Because of the design of the building, which places a lot of stress on the concrete slabs above the columns supporting the tower, Aghayere said the cracking and spalling noted in 1996 would have drawn his attention.
The extent of the concrete damage should have prompted more probing questions as far back as 1996, he said.
The article also gives further reason to hold the original designer/architect liable....that's a no-brainer. They caused the structural defect to be there. The attorney Kohn wants to peg it all on the HOA for not doing a fast enough job cleaning up the architect's multi-million dollar mess. That can backfire....Morabito, an engineer, in his 2018 report, certainly did not even warn that the building would collapse within three years...Morabito just said "major structural damage" would get worse. There's buildings that have stood for decades in spite of having major structural damage...the Morabito report is not necessarily enough to tip off the HOA that the building is about to collapse within the next three years. It was enough to tip off the building inspector that the City needed to enforce its code, though.
The HOA also has tons of people to point the finger at not least of all the architect. Either the architect or the original contractors...it would be nice to get the original plans of the design to see whether that was the architect's design or the contractors did a hack job. Either way, a jury could very well buy that the HOA was as much a victim and at the mercy of the architect's mess as everybody else.
Point being Kohn is a dolt for not including the original architect in as a defendant. Without question, the residents must sue the City of Surfside for negligent inspection, the HOA, the original architect, the original contractor (the architect may have designed it right and the construction company just screwed up), Morabito and Tong Le in their capacities as engineers. After all, the statute of limitations begins to run from the date of injury not the date of the negligent act. The fact Kohn has only limited himself to going after the HOA's insurance policy, when all these other entities have policies that money can be squeezed out of...is absurd. This Kohn guy is clearly playing Checkers and not Chess. That's a damn shame....a major thing like this, and the attorney is a total hack. That's the power of telephone book advertising and commercial billboards.