Team investigating the Twin Towers case could probe the Miami collapse

A team of scientists and engineers from an obscure federal agency investigating the Twin Towers case after September 11 arrived at the site of the partially collapsed residential tower in Surfside on Friday. Your goal: to decide whether to open a full investigation into the disaster and then begin the tedious process of determining what went wrong.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a little-known sub-agency of the Department of Commerce, is investigating disasters that, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Huergo, lead or have the potential to cause “significant loss of life”. It does so with the aim of recommending changes to building codes, standards, and practices that will ensure that similar disasters never happen again.

Thursday’s tragedy at the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside – in which at least four people were killed and over 150 missing by Saturday – appears to land right in the agency’s wheelhouse. A federal law passed after September 11th known as the National Construction Safety Team Act gave NIST the authority to investigate major building failures.

Any investigation by NIST, private forensic scientists, or both will follow a similar course, said Abieyuwa Aghayere, professor of forensics at Drexel University and an expert in structural steel structures and reinforced concrete as used in the construction of the Champlain Tower.

“They will make possible hypotheses for these types of errors,” said Aghayere. “At first they won’t rule anything out. You will put everything on the table. “

Then, he said, investigators will collect evidence – original drawings, debris, earth drilling, pictures of the collapse, and interviews with residents, property managers, and anyone else who may have noticed – and use it to determine which of their hypotheses could be a cause be for a catastrophic collapse.

Miami engineer John Pistorino said complex investigations, like plane crashes, often require careful partial reconstruction to pinpoint faults and determine what went wrong.

The seemingly spontaneous collapse of half a residential tower has nothing “probable”, a catastrophe that is so rare that it is difficult to compare in modern history.

Federal officials will be gathering all relevant information and materials on site, such as concrete and steel samples from the building, over the next few days before deciding whether to formally investigate.

“The NIST experts will work with federal, state and local authorities to identify and preserve materials that could be helpful in understanding the causes of the collapse,” said Huergo, the NIST spokeswoman.

The agency’s approach is modeled on that of the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates traffic-related accidents – such as the collapse of the pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in 2018, which killed six people.

Another federal agency investigating the FIU Bridge’s collapse – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is focused on workplace issues – also gathered information about the collapse in Surfside on Friday and decided whether it counts as an OSHA case.

The preliminary investigation can take years.

“We will do it as long as it takes,” said Huergo, noting that 200 people were involved in the NIST investigation into the attacks on the World Trade Center. “It’s still very early.”

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