NIST walks through $22-million investigation into Surfside condo collapse during virtual meeting

SURFSIDE – Nearly one year after Champlain Towers South condo collapse in Surfside, the federal agency investigating the cause updated the public.

During Thursday's virtual meeting, National Institute of Standards and Technology investigators walked through the $22-million investigation, and what will take place over the course of the next couple of years.

"I've been investigating and studying structural failures for over 40 years, and I can say this investigation is one of the most difficult and complex of its type ever undertaken," said NIST associate lead investigator Glenn Bell.

Among the work the committee is doing: Developing a collapse model, characterizing the subsurface of the property and investigating groundwater conditions and changes due to climate change.

The organization is working more than two-dozen hypotheses – and are considering more. They've ruled nothing out. And there are likely several contributing factors to the collapse.

"Some of these hypotheses-related work of the technical team includes magnitude and distribution of any settlements or other movements in the foundation, the impact of adjacent construction, especially that of the 87-park building to the south, and impact of climate change and tidal flooding, which may have caused buoyancy of the foundation," said Bell.

The investigation will last through at least September of 2023.