Pool Deck at Collapsed Florida Condo Building Had ‘Severe Strength Deficiency,’ Investigators Find

The 12-story condo building that collapsed and killed 98 people in Surfside, Florida, in 2021 had a pool deck with a "severe strength deficiency," according to federal investigators.

A preliminary summary of findings from the National Institute of Standards and Technology released Thursday found the pool deck at the Champlain Tower South had "critically low margins against failure," the Miami Herald reported.

Investigators found the pool deck was underdesigned in the area that collapsed just minutes before the tower fell on June 24, 2021, according to the newspaper.

Weaknesses in the deck's structural design were made worse when reinforcing steel within it was misplaced and later corroded, the investigators said during a public hearing on Thursday.

The deck also contained heavy pavers and planters that were not part of the initial design, the Herald reported.

Glenn Bell, the investigation's team associate leader, said the review's early findings indicate the building's design failed to meet codes and standards, even when it was constructed in the early 1980s.

“The lack of compliance was most severe in the pool deck structure,” Bell said.

In some parts of the pool deck, the strength was determined to be roughly half of what would have been required at the time it was constructed, Bell said.

According to the Herald, Bell said the pool deck's weak connections to its supporting columns were prone to a particular type of failure where a slab suddenly disconnects from a column.

“Even absent any sudden overload or obvious initiator of a failure on the night of a collapse, the conditions present on the pool deck slab at that time represented a serious safety concern for the building,” Bell said.

The ongoing probe is still looking at two dozen other potential hypotheses.

Investigators said they are considering how the pool deck is likely where the collapse initiated, investigators said.

The review into what happened is expected to wrap up next year, followed by a full report containing the cause of the collapse and potential recommendations for code and standards updates, according to the Wall Street Journal.