Condo collapse: City engineer says he was denied access to collapse site to test materials

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“Until they do their job, we can’t come in to take material samples and take those samples and test them to figure out what the different building components were that fell,” the engineer said on Friday. in structure Allyn Kilsheimer to Ana Cabrera of CNN. .

“What I would like to have access first is the slab of the basement of the building, to go there to do the exploratory soil tests, the electrical foundations and all that to understand,” he added.

The methodical excavation of the Champlain South Towers entered its fourth week, after the building collapsed in the wee hours of the morning on June 24. Teams recovered 97 bodies from the rubble and identified 94 victims on Friday.

Miami-Dade Police have identified Brad Cohen, 51, and Maria Popa, 79, who were recovered from the debris on July 7 and 9, respectively, the police said on Twitter.
Officials said other investigators, including those from the federal agency National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), were at the scene.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in an earlier statement, “We have a large team of engineers and other forensic experts from NIST and other federal agencies on site to perform extensive testing, measurements, photographs and 3D images, as well as collection and evidence, to collect as much data as possible to support the full investigation. “

Surfside condo collapse 911 calls reveal confusion and chaos as building collapses
Kilsheimer noted that some people living near the collapse site have expressed concern that the soil may have contributed to the condominium building’s partial fall, but he said engineers don’t know. , as the cause of the collapse remains under investigation.

“We don’t know if this is a problem on the ground or not. We have to do this testing and this assessment in order to be able to understand that,” he said.

Kilsheimer said he had not yet been able to determine the cause of the collapse. While he was able to rule out some causes, he still found around 20 to 30 possible triggers.

“We do all the computer modeling and engineering of the original drawings to make sure that we believe the original designs were correct based on the code requirements at the time,” he explained.

“What we cannot do now is examine the materials used in the building to see if it meets the requirements of the drawings.”

Miami-Dade police assist at the search and rescue booth near the completely collapsed 12-story Champlain South Towers on July 6, 2021 in Surfside, Florida.

“We’re almost there”: research efforts continue

Even though more than 22 million pounds of concrete and debris have been removed from the site, according to Miami-Dade County, crews continue to sift through the remaining piles of rubble.

But already intense work just keeps getting more difficult.

Text from unanswered son, two sisters buried together, a newlywed couple and a 60-year-old love affair: what we know about the victims of the collapse

“At this point in the recovery process, it has become increasingly difficult to identify the victims, and we rely heavily on the work of the medical examiner’s office and the scientific and technical process of identifying the human remains,” a Miami-Dade County press release. mentionned. “This job gets more difficult over time, even though our teams are working as hard and as fast as possible.”

The county added that it would only report the number of victims who have been identified, “out of respect for the families still waiting and to ensure that we report the most accurate numbers possible.”

The teams are almost at the bottom of the collapse site, Miami-Dade Police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta told CNN.

“Does that mean we’re almost done with the search? No. Until we clear the whole site and find more human remains, we won’t be finished.”

“We’re almost there,” Zabaleta added.

Rabbi: What we're trying to do for the grieving people in Surfside

And while the move to what was once the home of dozens of families is nearing completion, the pain within the community is going nowhere.

Flowers, letters and photos are always added to the Hope Wall, a memorial to those who were inside on the doors of the building’s tennis court.

“It’s almost like a grieving process or a shiva process that goes on and on, but yet you haven’t had the funeral,” Soriya Cohen told CNN affiliate WLPG, as she waited. that the rescuers find her husband. “I’m not even 100% sure he’s going to be found because they looked around his apartment and they only found his brother.”

CNN’s Tina Burnside, Rebekah Riess, Julia Griggs, Madeline Holcombe and Rosa Flores contributed to this report.



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