Roof of Miami-Dade building partially collapses, all apartments evacuated
By: Elisha Fieldstadt (NBC News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
July 16, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC By Elisha Fieldstadt
The roof of a Miami-Dade apartment building partially collapsed Thursday, three weeks after the deadly partial collapse of Champlain Towers South prompted concerns about building stability in the region.
More than 30 residents were evacuated from 7500 NW 68 Avenue after Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded at about 4 p.m., the department said.
Only the exterior of the building was damaged, and no injuries were reported, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's Erika Benitez told reporters.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she responded to the scene and was briefed by building inspectors. She said the Red Cross was assisting the evacuated families.
I'm on the scene of the partial roof collapse in Northwest Miami-Dade and have just been briefed by @MiamiDadeFire & our building inspectors. All residents have been evacuated & @RedCross is assisting the families.
I will continue to update the public as we get more information. pic.twitter.com/A8DRJjymMX
— Daniella Levine Cava (@MayorDaniella) July 15, 2021
After half of Champlain Towers South in Surfside flattened on June 24, Levine Cava ordered an audit of buildings in the county that are five stories or higher and at or near 40 years old. She encouraged municipalities to do the same, offering the county's support.
At least five buildings in Florida have now been evacuated.
Levine Cava said 7500 NW 68 Avenue, which is three stories, had passed its 40-year inspection and was approaching the 50-year mark, according to NBC Miami. She added nothing in the recertification indicated there was a problem.
As of Thursday, 92 people were confirmed dead in the rubble of Champlain Towers South. Officials said they have determined 97 people in total were reported potentially missing.
Investigators have not determined the cause of the collapse.
Documents released after the collapse included a 2018 report that highlighted an engineer's concerns that the building had "major structural damage."
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Another one. I didn't know five buildings had to be evacuated.
There's one 15 miles north that is an old hotel on the beach converted to condo's 30 years ago.
The 40 year review was very similar to Champlain's reccomending evacuation and do 15 million in repairs in January, 2021.
The condo tried to sue and got their own engineer who failed to follow the 40 year review format or even address all of the issues.
That was an "L" shaped structure on the beach.
At Crestview Towers about 5 miles from Surfside there are 156 units, also condemned to $15million in upgrades
so that is an assessment of roughly $100,000 each with no guarantee that this won't happen again in the future.
Dade County forced the evacuation in June, in spite of no obvious failures yet.
Tenants can visit their condos, one family at a time ( with a police officer ) to remove clothes and essentials, no furniture.
North Miami Beach Condo Building Closed, Evacuated After Structure Deemed Unsafe – NBC 6 South Florida (nbcmiami.com)
I believe that they will find a lot more that need to be evacuated or the work done on them ASAP.
I would most likely be freaking out if I owned an older condo.
looks like a lot of future paper shuffling by sleazy attorneys to bury the ownership trails of building contractors to me. time to make like the right wing senate and give the dumb ass florida governor less than half the money he needs to fix his infrastructure problems.
Morning..
Looks like alot of these apartments have seen better days and time has caught up with them..might be a lot of demolition coming up in the next few years.
Time for DeSantis to put away his fiddle.
Maybe the inspection period should be less than 40 years, and it would be good if the inspectors had the morality to shun bribes. As well, the inspection reports must be provided to government officials besides the building owners. In the case of the Champlain Towers, the owners and/or Condo corporation knew about the problem for a long time and argued about how much it was going to cost - and as you can see, it has cost a lot of innocent lives.