The moral of the story is going to be that buildings need 37 year recertification, not 40 year.
I haven't heard any theories about the cause, which seems odd if only because you'd want to know if it was just that building or in its something that might affect neighboring ones. One obvious theory for an oceanside building collapsing in Miami is water levels somehow affecting the foundation.
Like trained attack dolphins were digging holes under the building?
And yet no one talks about all the buildings in Miami that haven't collapsed.
My new apartment building is also 40 years old, and needs some seismic upgrades, but it's not nearly as tall and apparently California earthquake standards improved markedly in 1978 so it shouldn't be a death trap at least.
2: I think they are looking into it but it will probably take some investigation. There was some speculation about some heavy earth work going on nearby.
2: I think they are looking into it but it will probably take some investigation. There was some speculation about some heavy earth work going on nearby.
I wonder if they used beach sand in the concrete mix.
10. I would be surprised -- I think the sand in Miami is all imported from elsewhere, and has been for ages. It's too expensive to use for concrete.
2 Have they ruled out excessive well pumping that leads to greater salt water intrusion, which, because it's more acidic, breaks down the subsurface limestone?
Ie, have they decided that Florida isn't just plain fucked by climate change?
12. That's been one of the proposed explanations.
I'm waiting for them to blame critical race theory.
WaPo today has an article all about the sea level rise interaction. Too soon to say on this particular case, but it's plausible.
Absolutely terrifying.
So the infrastructure just collapses all around us; and we don't know who to blame, from whom to demand accountability... it's just acts of God, I guess; but sending thoughts and prayers to the hapless victims of a de-regulated urban planning regime run by unscrupulous property developers ...
Apparently per NYT there was an inspection in 2018 which noted significant foundational issues. Work was being planned. Sounded like some design issues re: water control may have contributed.
14: You won't have to wait long, I suspect.
Why did Governor DeSantis let this happen?
Welcome to Joe Biden's America.
Holy Grail and Life of Brian were good. Or I liked them when I was younger.
AIUI a large chunk of Miami is built on porous limestone. Sea-level rise is only the beginning of their infrastructure problems.
My last few visits to Miami, I've been repeatedly amazed at the number of high-end condos getting built right on or near beaches. I was exclaiming to a local resident about how on earth these could get insured, and he explained that apparently (I'm paraphrasing) the financial structure is a "hot potato" strategy where an investor agrees to insure the property for 12 months. If something happens during that 12 months, the investor is screwed, because they have to pay out. But if nothing happens, they win big on their gamble, and they just pass the "hot potato" of a policy to the next investor.
Apparently a lot of elite folks from Latin America also use Miami real estate as a place to park their cash, so I guess a portion of these properties are purchased outright with cash and don't have mortgages on them.
Bottom line: I always love visiting Miami, and I always come away deeply worried about the lack of what (to my untrained eye) seem like very basic consumer protections.
"History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man".
Personal boats attract only the highest net-worth inndividuals, and inundation will therefore synergize with the city's business model.
My operating assumption is that something like 20% of the real estate in the top 20 destination cities in the world function primarily as vehicles for money laundering.
Was channel-hopping the other day, and Life of Brian came on. The station put a written advisory in front of the movie to the effect that Life of Brian is a product of its time, and certain scenes are no longer really appropriate.
I couldn't imagine what they were talking about, but watched a bit and came to this scene where the People's Front of Judea is working out its ideological commitments.
Now the joke here is about leftists or revolutionaries, and not transgender people, but I don't think you can do this scene that way any more.
Holy Grail and Life of Brian are, nonetheless, essential viewing. To geeks of a certain generation, Holy Grail is probably as foundational a document as Lord of the Rings.
And Meaning of Life is great, too.
I'll watch anything directed by Terry Gilliam, although I am compelled to admit that a lot of it isn't very good. Brazil is terrific and Time Bandits is a lot of fun.
Another great Python-adjacent movie: A Fish Called Wanda.
On the theme of 24, I have a memory of a post here where the journalist goes to Miami and goes through the motions to buy a half-dozen different pieces of property, and is just agog that no one is mentioning the impending doom of the entire region. Some longform piece also dwelling on the details of the impending doom of the entire region.
re: 29
Could be Sarah Miller's piece from a couple years ago.
https://popula.com/2019/04/02/heaven-or-high-water/
I thought the money laundering explanation was pretty plausible, but MattY said in passing on Twitter that it wasn't shown to hold up. He didn't elaborate, though.
YES!! Thank you. Such a beautiful piece of journalism.
33: This? I think this is just saying that whatever effect it has is localized and much smaller than the NIMBYism found everywhere. This has some Miami specifics.
This is far from the end of the fed's investigations into illicit money in real estate. Recently, Senator Marco Rubio proposed expanding the federal investigation nationwide. Rubio wants shell companies that purchase homes for more than $300,000 anywhere in the United States to disclose their owners, which could include as much as 10 percent of the nation's real estate deals.
I am weirdly on the same page as Rubio. More generally, I think owners and the financials of companies should be public information. I'm entirely spoiled by Companies House here.
There's certainly some pied-a-terre/laundering condo investment by rich fucks in big cosmopolitan cities. It's rarely in anywhere near enough numbers to explain anything at macro level (e.g., rents). But I could imagine it mattering for certain types of buildings in certain neighborhoods.
I'm assuming the impending doom isn't considered a problem because they intend to get bailed out the way failed real estate rich people get bailed out.
Or that they will sell to a bigger idiot. The collapse of liquidity isn't something people expect. They think it will be a slide where they can take a small loss.
I mean, if it's like the last real estate crash, rich property-owners came out fine in the long term there, unless they were overleveraged. Opportunity to buy low, and now prices are well over the 2000's peak. But yes, sea level rise and attendant collapse is a different kind of risk.
42: I was thinking of 2008, but the way the bonds collapsed, not the houses.
I am weirdly on the same page as Rubio. More generally, I think owners and the financials of companies should be public information. I'm entirely spoiled by Companies House here.
Yeah, it's weird thinking of the UK as a transparent jurisdiction, but the US is just a total black box when it comes to private companies.
I used to live in a Miami-type condo outside of Port-of-Spain and it was generally about 75% empty. Rich people buy condos to park cash and show up only on occasion.
High-end condos are getting built at an incredible clip on Oahu. I have no idea who's buying them all but there don't seem to be a lot of lights on at night.
Rich people buying vacation properties they rarely use isn't uncommon, is it?
Over the weekend, there was an article about other longstanding issues found during a 2017 inspection and review. It sounds like the roof never drained properly, probably rotting and corroding the posts and columns below it. Even that is hard to believe resulted in so sudden a collapse -- you'd expect more redundancy in the system to give a warning. I'm going to be very interested when the final structural reports come out with their root cause analysis.
48: No, but my mind still boggles at the idea that there are so many people with the ability and willingness to drop $1-2 million plus on vacation property.
I've heard income inequality is getting worse.
A lot of it just has to be dirty money.
My uncle is a senior executive at a very large company and he just bought a fifth house because he stayed in a city for a few months during the pandemic and decided he liked the area so why not buy a house to stay in when he wants to go back.
53: maybe I could be allowed to continue working remotely and I could house sit for him.
Netanyahu is still living in the official Prime-Minister House. Are there no U-Hauls available?
