Troubling photographs taken by a contractor in the basement garage of the Champlain Towers South condo 36 hours before it collapsed reveal cracked concrete, exposed and severely corroded rebar and pools of water on the floor.
“There was standing water all over the parking garage,†the commercial pool contractor, who snapped the startling images, told the Miami Herald.
The contractor, who asked not to be named, visited the building last week to prepare a bid for cosmetic work on the pool and to provide the cost of new equipment as part of a multimillion-dollar restoration project at the 40-year-old structure, the outlet reported.
The man said he had gone into “some scary places†during his decades of work, but was particularly struck by the lack of maintenance in the basement — and that the amount of water there was so unusual that he mentioned it to a building worker named Jose, according to the Herald.
“He thought it was waterproofing issues,†the contractor told the paper of the employee. “I thought to myself, that’s not normal.â€
He said Jose told him they pumped the pool equipment room so often that the pump motors had to be replaced every two years, but that the man never mentioned any structural damage.
The contractor told the Herald that the deepest puddle was near parking spot 78, in an area right under the pool deck where engineer Frank Morabito in a damning 2018 private study flagged “major structural damage†caused by a leaky pool above the parking garage.
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