As relatives and friends of those missing in the Champlain Towers disaster wait for news of their loved ones, reports that essential repairs were delayed will only add to their anguish.
As early as 2018, an engineer commissioned to examine the building concluded that extensive repairs were vital to repair “major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below” the pool deck and drive. The cost was estimated at between nine and fifteen million dollars, and each unit in the building would have been expected to contribute between $80,000 and $200,000, according to the New York Times.
Understandably, residents balked at the huge amount, and according to at least one account, there was “screaming and yelling” at meetings of the building’s board. Five of the board’s seven members resigned in late 2019 due to their frustration at their inability to move forward.
“The building is falling apart,” wrote Marcelo Pena, a former board member, according to the New York Times. “Somebody can be seriously injured or killed with the state of the concrete.”
And still nothing happened – other than that the president of the board resigned too.
Foot-dragging continued through 2020 until finally, early this year, it looked like the repairs would be commenced. In April, however, residents were still complaining, and wrote a letter to the board (obtained by the Washington Post), asking for it to lower the cost, explaining that they “cannot afford an assessment that doubles the amount of maintenance dues currently being paid.”
But nothing had been done to rectify the situation under the pool before disaster struck, and it now appears that the engineer’s report was spot-on. One resident of the Towers, forty-year-old Cassondra Stratton, called her husband right before the collapse, telling him in a panic that she saw a “sinkhole” where the pool once was.
Mike Stratton was then on a business trip and listened helplessly as his wife described the building shaking as she stood on the balcony of their fourth-floor apartment.
Then the line went dead. “It was one-thirty a.m.,” Stratton told Local 10 News. “I’ll never, never forget that.”