MIAMI — The federal investigation into the cause of the catastrophic collapse at Champlain Towers South is “well underway,” officials said Monday during their first formal update on the probe. But four-plus months after the tragedy, there is no official word yet on what might have caused it or a timeline of when that answer could come.
The deliberate pace is not unusual for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a sub-agency of the Department of Commerce whose mission includes investigating a select few major building failures. But it’s a source of frustration for some family members of the 98 dead.
“The reality is that we were expecting a lot more information [from] this presentation,” David Rodan, whose brother and three cousins died in the June 24 collapse, said during a public comment period Monday. “Four months should be enough to get a little bit more information.”
He added: “We would prefer the next report to actually have some findings, even if they’re not conclusive or not complete.”
But initial findings likely won’t be coming at the next hearing, which is tentatively set for next June. “In previous investigations, we have not shared preliminary conclusions or findings before our draft report,” said NIST spokeswoman Jennifer Huergo.
Past NIST investigations have taken between two-and-a-half and six years.
At Monday’s hearing — a virtual presentation for an advisory committee that offers guidance to investigators — NIST officials said its assembled team of experts has already taken substantial steps. Members of the team have gathered evidence from the collapse site in Surfside, collected below-ground and foundation materials and sent them to labs for testing, and begun interviewing people who are “knowledgeable” of South Florida construction from the time Champlain Towers South went up in 1981.
It’s all part of an effort to ultimately create a computer model to simulate where the collapse began and how it progressed, determine what caused it, and make recommendations on how to prevent similar catastrophes in the future.
“Our mission is not to find fault, determine responsibility or assess liability, but rather determine why the failure occurred so that we can learn from it and avert future disasters,” said Glenn Bell, associate lead investigator for the agency.
NIST officials have previously said that, if they learn anything during their investigation that indicates other buildings — including the two sister towers of Champlain South — are at risk, they would immediately share it with the public. But the agency’s primary focus is determining how Champlain South failed, however long that takes.
Bell said during a discussion of the investigation budget that the work “will probably extend beyond two years.” Federal lawmakers have allocated $22 million to support the probe.
Abieyuwa Aghayere, a Drexel University engineering researcher, said the agency has laid out “a very detailed and comprehensive failure investigation plan,” following guidelines by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“They plan to analyze various failure hypotheses as well as determine the adequacy of the original design and construction, in addition to a comprehensive materials testing of the collapse specimens,” Aghayere said.
In a discussion following the NIST presentation, members of the National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee acknowledged that it’s hard for NIST to give answers quickly, because creating a complex, realistic simulation of the collapse takes time.
But the advisory group said NIST could perhaps do a better job communicating to avoid frustration and confusion.
“I would definitely counsel them to think through what the timeline truly is going to be, and ensure that they are communicating that timeline [to the public] and why that timeline is going to be so long,” said Kimberly Shoaf, a committee member and professor at the University of Utah who specializes in research methods for studying disasters.
The committee agreed to include a section in its upcoming annual report to Congress recommending that NIST better inform the public about the milestones of its probes.
“The public hopefully will then understand,” said panel member William Holmes, a San Francisco-based structural engineer, “that it’s going to be towards the end of this whole process when they’re going to get some answers.”
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