JUST IN: Contractor Reportedly Took Troubling Photos of Damage at Surfside Condo — 36 Hours Before It Collapsed

The news from the scene of a partially collapsed condo in Surfside, Florida continues to be grim: the latest numbers Monday afternoon are that 136 people are accounted for, 150 people are still unaccounted for, and 11 people are confirmed dead. A new report from the Miami Herald is providing some new information on the state of the building before the collapse.

The headline says it all: “Two days before condo collapse, a pool contractor photographed this damage in garage,” and the photographs clearly show standing water, cracked and damaged concrete, and corroded rebar (the steel bars commonly used to reinforce concrete structures).

Miami Herald reporter Sarah Blaskey spoke with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer by phone, and noted that the photos were taken only 36 hours before the building collapsed, by a contractor whose company was putting together a bid to perform some cosmetic repairs to the pool, but what he saw in the parking garage and underneath the pool deck was concerning.

The pool area itself looked fine, he told Blaskey (he spoke to the Herald under condition of anonymity), the lobby looked fine, but then he went into the basement garage under the pool deck and there was “standing water all over the parking garage.” When he went into the pool equipment room, he saw large cracks in the concrete and corroded rebar.

The contractor reportedly took photos of the damage to send to his boss, shocked at how poorly maintained the building appeared, and noting that this site was “going to be a bigger job” than just mere cosmetic work.

Blitzer replied that it was a “graphic and devastating picture,” and asked Blaskey if these photos mirrored the warnings from the 2018 structural survey report.

“Actually, what I understand from experts is these photos may even be worse” than what was described in the 2018 report, said Blaskey.

She did point out an “important caveat,” that the photos the Herald had published were taken in the south side of the basement structure, and what had caved in was on the condominium’s north side. In other words, the photos were “not immediately in the collapse zone,” so it was unclear if that specific damage shown did in fact contribute to the collapse. Some experts had opined that that it was possible for damage along the south side to have been involved, due to the way the building was shaped, or if the areas along the north part of the basement had similar signs of damage and deterioration, then that could have been a cause.

“Is the fear, Sarah, that these issues were pervasive, perhaps, in other parts of the building as well?” Blitzer asked for clarification.

“That is the fear,” Blaskey replied. “It’s by ‘severe structural damage’ or ‘severe damage to the structural slab,’ which is the phrase that was used in that 2018 report,” that the engineer meant was the type of damage that could have contributed to the collapse.

In addition to the damage caused by water (leaked from the pool, from rainwater, or salt water  from the nearby ocean), chemicals used in the pool could have leaked along with the water and further damaged the concrete and rebar, Blaskey added, but it “is possible that this was an isolated, really bad situation, and maybe the other rebar wasn’t as bad. We just don’t know yet.”

Read the Miami Herald report here.

Watch the video above, via CNN.