Courtesy of Pam Martens
Debris from Collapse of L’Ambiance Plaza Apartment Building Where 28 Construction Workers Died in 1987. Photo Source: National Bureau of Standards
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 30, 2021 ~
On Thursday, June 24, the day that the 40-year old Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside, Florida collapsed suddenly at 1:23 a.m., the Sun Sentinel newspaper ran this headline later that day on its website: “Buildings don’t just fall down. Why did the condo in Surfside?”
If you’ve been carefully following the news over the past half century, you know that a number of tall buildings have fallen down in the United States. But the vast majority of those have been from a domestic or foreign terrorist attack or gas explosions.
What the majority of Americans do not realize is that the biggest risk to a high-rise building collapsing comes during the construction phase – and the reasons for that should greatly concern all Americans.
We did research in the federal government’s various archives and located four high-rise buildings and one five-story building that have collapsed since 1971. Multiple fatalities occurred in all five and all five collapses occurred during construction. In each and every case the collapse involved faulty design and/or faulty construction work, raising serious questions about local government oversight of these projects.
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