The difficulty facing the operation in Miami 1:12
Surfside, Florida (CNN) -
With his baseball cap and bushy white beard, Allyn Kilsheimer could be mistaken for a retiree if it weren't for the team of construction workers following him and the long metal pole he carried while inspecting. the ground floor of the Champlain Towers North building.
"Here, this far, this far, this far," he told the workers, drawing a square along a support structure built into the building's facade to indicate where he wanted radar tests to show the placement. of the steel reinforcement under the surface.
Minute by minute: death toll rises after Miami building collapse
The 80-year-old, a structural engineer and veteran of forensic investigations in catastrophes like the Pentagon after 9/11 and the collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in Miami in 2018, was hired by the city of Surfside. , Florida, a day after a condo collapse that left 79 people confirmed dead and 61 still missing.
The north tower, sister to the Champlain Towers South tower, which has the same architectural and structural design, has become his laboratory.
On Friday, CNN accompanied him as he traversed several floors of the 12-story building, ordering that tiles be removed from the pool deck and concrete samples be taken from the wall of a fifth-floor apartment for a series of tests. evidence you hope will help explain the scene of the disaster.
"It's one of the 13,000 pieces of the puzzle," Kilsheimer said.
advertising
Allyn Kilsheimer was hired by the city to investigate the cause of the Surfside condo collapse.
As first responders worked around the clock to pull people out of the rubble, Kilsheimer and a different group of researchers have been gathering evidence about the fallen structure, its design and maintenance, looking for clues that could identify who, if any. someone, would be responsible for its collapse.
The teams will continue to work on the rubble of the Miami building until all the missing are found.
Overlapping investigations - which include homicide detectives, local prosecutors, and government engineers - could take years to complete;
and the desire of collapse survivors or victims' families to reach a criminal resolution will run up against a legal standard that makes charges, in a case like this, difficult to bring.
The evidence available to researchers is growing by the day.
Scientists in the city of Washington have used drones to capture 3D maps of the crash site and have examined the composition of the ground beneath it.
What's next for body recovery in Miami?
2:34
The possible trigger for the collapse
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the lead federal agency investigating the cause of the collapse, has begun interviewing people involved in previous inspections of the building.
And local police are sorting more than 5.8 million kilos of concrete so far removed from the pile.
Among that debris, NIST investigators have labeled more than 200 pieces as potentially significant, authorities said Friday.
After two weeks at the site, Kilsheimer says he is considering "all kinds of possibilities" to explain the collapse.
Several factors, from design flaws to material deterioration, could have weakened the tower before a "trigger" event brought it down, he said.
Where did the collapse of the Miami building begin?
2:48
His team has investigated trigger theories that it believes are highly unlikely, such as recent explosive tests conducted at sea by the Navy a few hundred kilometers from the tower.
A car crashing into a pillar in the building's basement garage is a more plausible trigger, he said, although no evidence of one has emerged so far in the weeks leading up to the collapse.
"There may be something we learn as we look at the debris that will help us understand what could have been a possible trigger," he said.
When asked by a reporter what he was looking for, he said: "Something that doesn't feel right on my gut."
"We've been around the block many times, so I know how things should look, and I know what happens when they look a little weird, and then you have to evaluate 'a little weird.'
The possibility of a criminal charge
Earlier this week, the county's chief prosecutor, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, indicated that her office would await the results of the scientific investigation into the cause of the collapse before considering a criminal investigation.
Meanwhile, it said in a statement, it launched an investigative jury to explore possible reforms to avoid similar collapses in the future.
That effort will culminate in a report similar to the one produced by an investigative jury in the wake of the devastating 1992 Hurricane Andrew that led to building code improvements.
Depending on the evidence emerging in the Kilsheimer and NIST reviews, filing a criminal charge would be challenging, legal experts said, due to the high legal pressure prosecutors would face to prove the most likely murder charge.
Under that charge, prosecutors must prove "culpable negligence: that someone's conduct was" gross and flagrant "with" reckless disregard for human life. "
Documents and reports that have emerged since the building's collapse have thus far painted a picture of a 40-year-old structure in disrepair and a condo board struggling to raise the multi-million dollar sum in time for the necessary repairs.
2018 report alerted Miami building failures 2:48
Frank Morabito, an engineer hired by the board in 2018 to inspect the building, wrote in a report that year that "failed waterproofing" under the pool deck was "causing significant structural damage to the concrete structural slab below. areas "and warned that if it is not replaced in the near future," the deterioration of concrete will expand exponentially. "
"A tragedy beyond all tragedy", the collapse of the Champlain Tower South in Miami was a catastrophe in slow motion
Infighting among the board followed over raising funds for the repairs, the cost of which rose from an estimated $ 9 million to $ 15 million by 2021 as the condition worsened.
"Much of this work could have been done or planned in years past. But this is where we are now," wrote board chairman Jean Wodnicki in an April 2021 letter to residents.
None of the reports so far appear to have reached the threshold for guilty negligence, said Dave Aronberg, the state attorney in nearby Palm Beach County.
"Guilty negligence requires some knowledge that the collapse of the building was imminent and someone did nothing about it," Aronberg said.
"A report that says there is a lot of structural damage and then the board did not close the building immediately or (the official responsible for the) building did not close the building immediately, that is not criminal."
Rundle's office still has an open investigation following the deaths of six people in the 2018 FIU bridge collapse, according to an office spokeswoman.
The National Transportation Safety Review Board concluded in 2019 that design flaws and insufficient oversight contributed to that collapse.
Under Florida law, wrongful death does not have a statute of limitations.
In the Surfside case, prosecutors will likely also be guided by the final report from NIST, the federal agency.
The extensive inquiry
In an interview with CNN last week, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said NIST had interviewed "a lot of people," including city officials involved in the inspection of the building.
"Anyone with any information has been interviewed," he said.
Among the group is Surfside city construction official Jim McGuinness, who promised to fully cooperate with the agency in a phone call with investigators, according to a spokesman for the city manager's office.
NIST investigators also have subpoena power, although they have never used it, said Jennifer Huergo, an agency spokeswoman.
Huergo said the agency's investigation team is still in formation.
People familiar with the agency's work warned that a full investigation could take years to complete.
Images that could show damage to the Miami building 2:45
The FBI is not currently investigating the Surfside collapse, according to a US official, but a federal criminal investigation could be launched depending on NIST's findings.
Meanwhile, the first discovery of possible wrongdoing is likely to come in civil court, where lawsuits have been piling up against the condo board since the collapse, and where the standard of negligence is lower.
In a hearing this week, an appointed receivership representing the Champlain Towers South condominium board said he is investigating contractors who worked on the building in recent years, as well as the developer of a luxury skyscraper next door to Champlain Towers South as "potential defendants" in the case who could be held responsible for the collapse.
Adding it to the case could significantly increase the amount of insurance money available to tower residents.
A judge overseeing the cases, Michael Hanzman, has said he wants to end the process and get compensation from the victims within a year.
"This case is going to move at a rapid pace," Hanzman said.
"These victims want to know what happened, they want to be compensated as much as possible, and I am committed, the court is committed, to get this to support them, at least from a legal point of view, as soon as possible." .
Kilsheimer also said he's going as fast as he can.
Get only a few hours of sleep each night before heading to the office at 2am so you can work without interruption.
"It wasn't an act of God, I don't think so," he said.
"We will solve it. There may be people who don't like what we find out, but we will solve it."
Building Collapse Miami Surfside