The Surfside Tragedy Has a Cause Been Identified

Ninety-eight people lost their lives in the Surfside Condo Collapse tragedy. Now, as we approach the first year anniversary of the horrible sequence of events that claimed so many lives, a cause may have been identified.

The Florida Business Forum has an exclusive podcast interview with Dr. Randall Parkinson, a PhD Geologist who says rising seas and an accompanying rise in groundwater beneath the aging oceanfront condo may have played a significant role in the collapse and deaths.

Even though the families of the victims have been awarded nearly a billion dollars, those same families still search for the elusive question: WHY?

Your host and anchorman of the Florida Business Forum Podcast asks the questions and probes the answers in this Special Report: The Surfside Tragedy Has a Cause Been Identified?

Transcript

Sam Yates: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to another informative episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Let's open the Florida Business Forum floodgates and let the information begin to flow. Here's your Florida Business Forum information guru and Anchorman Sam Yates. Today, we are revisiting a topic that we have revisited several times since about a year ago the Surfside condo collapse, devastating tower collapse. 98 people lost their lives and that on June 24 2021, it's officially been blamed on water intrusion, corrosion of the reinforcing steel in the building and unofficially a lack of maintenance and repairs. So a lot of things coming together today. Other factors listed in the report included some things that we may end up talking about today because my special guest is Dr. Randall Parkinson, he has just recently completed a scientific review, speculation on the role of sea level rise, climate change and what he calls some very disturbing facts that have until this collapse not been addressed anywhere in the state of Florida. And that is shocking. Dr. Parkinson, welcome to the program today.

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 1:31

Thank you for your interest in inviting me.

Sam Yates: 1:34

You know, before we go into details about your report, I always like to set the stage of our guest and give a bit of their background. Tell us about yourself.

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 1:45

Well, I moved to Florida in 1982, I was down at the University of Miami at the Marine Laboratory where I completed a PhD in marine geology and geophysics. Specifically looking at the effects of sea level change on the coastal zone. That could be 6000 years ago, 12,000 years ago. But over time, I began to focus on the looming risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change and sea level rise. And I have been doing that work. I think I published my first paper in 1987. That's how long I've been talking about this. My background is and my efforts are focused on coastal geology, wetlands Coastal Zone Management. I am currently a research associate professor at Florida International University in their Institute of environment where I've been there, I think, going on six years. And I have a geological consulting company. As I said, I have a PhD in marine geology and geophysics. And I'm also a registered professional geologist in the state of Florida with experience through the wider Caribbean, Central America, Gulf of Mexico, Florida, Georgia, you name

Sam Yates: 3:06

but I begged a lot of people to tell me more details. There's so many details there. If we got into it, we would be spending the entire day talking about that. But in particular, the rise of sea level, why does that interest you.

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 3:23

So the rising sea level interests me because what we know from the geological record is that the rate is certainly the record since the last glacial maximum maximum. So 15,000 years ago until the present sea level has been rising in response to the melting of glaciers. And it's been rising at a at a slowing rate as we moved out of that last ice age. And the rate at which sea level changes, has a just drive the entire coastal zone. So for six or 7000 years, it didn't really matter. Because nobody lived there. It did impact the indigenous coastal populations in Florida over the last for about 1200 years till no European contact. But I really began to get more and more interested in the fact of the intense urbanization of the Florida coastal zone. And essentially what I thought was a collision course with catastrophic consequences because the rate of sea level rise, although it had been slowing, for millennia, was now accelerating and it was accelerating to rates at which caused massive coastal realignments in the geological record.

Sam Yates: 4:49

And of course that acceleration brings us to the Surfside collapse. You've called this report speculation why speculation and not just outright say This is what caused it.

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 5:02

Well, the the title was what? Essentially, there was speculation, not by me. And that triggered my investigation. There was, as I, of course, tracked the tragic collapse and so forth. Initially, as you had mentioned, people were talking about what was what caused it were their maintenance issues was a faulty design, you know, no repairs and correct repairs and proper inspections, no inspections. But then I noticed that the media reports started to drift into speculation on the role of climate change, sea level rise and saltwater intrusion. So it was that speculation that garnered my attention and and then I began to look into what really that how that could happen. And I was doing a few informational videos and talking to the media and and then I just dove in headfirst and really started grind out the data to see what really that meant.

Sam Yates: 6:13

It was a scientific process, then that you saw something investigated. Tell us what you found.

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 6:20

Well, what I found was when I looked at the historical, say, the elevation of sea level, as recorded at a tide gauge station in Virginia, key which is like 10 miles south and Surfside as a part of the Bear Island system, there's a NOAA tide gauge there that's been collecting data for a very long time. But I looked at the data, which essentially is the elevation of sea level, and they measure this on hourly intervals continuously. And I applauded the elevation of sea level rise since the since 1984, when the condominium was constructed to the present. And then I looked at and found the the elevation of the basement floor. So I know that elevation, and when I compared it to the elevation of sea level, it was not uncommon. In fact, between 1994 and 2006, the elevation is one hour records from the gauge, it was saying that the elevation was exceeded 244 times on average a year throughout the duration. So that's 1994 to 2006. But then I noticed and this I've written on as well, along with my colleague, Shimon winsky, where there was a significant acceleration in the Strait of cielo arrived that occurred in about 2006. And again, this is consistent with climate change scenarios warming, acceleration in the melting of glaciers, the thermal expansion of the ocean, so you know, sea level is accelerating. And as a consequence, between 2006 Or seven to 2020. That elevation of the basement was exceeded of our sea level, an average of 636 times a year. So what does that mean? Well, we don't really know exactly, except you can imagine that if the basement floor is at a particular elevation, and it's on the coastline, and is built on a forest barrier island, and sea levels fluctuating above and below that, well, that saltwater extends through the island. Oh, at a minimum, the groundwater table at the side of the condo or any building would be the elevation of sea level rise. But compounding that is the fact that there often is a freshwater lens or groundwater, if you will, it's floating on top of cielo and when you consider that the number of times water and this tastes fresher or mixing a fresh, you know goes through the roof. So this was a bellwether moment for me in that just something that nobody was thinking about in 1984. And actually, I don't really think anybody has been thinking about it. As of design consideration in terms of they might consider the presence of groundwater or sea level or saltwater but not the fact that you know it's dynamic and that the conditions are changing and And ultimately, why do we care? Well, if you design a building that is designed to be a no water or freshwater, and you have four elevations that are above that, but because of sea level rise and saltwater intrusion, that water becomes shallower and saltier. And those conditions can trigger flooding of buildings, if they're not properly in rooms, if they're a subterranean can trigger a change in the corrosive corrosivity the water and how that interacts with the structural elements, and it just opens a Pandora's box.

Sam Yates: 10:45

Now you are able to see the sea level rise through, as you indicated, looking at what NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records had shown over many, many years. But that one little part there about the freshwater floating on top of the salt water, a lot of people would say, Well, how do you know that you lucked out using the word just for what you were looking into and not the overall tragedy of course, but you found something with the the city of Miami and it's well system,

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 11:20

right, the city by beach had installed wells to monitor the behavior of groundwater in their domain, in that they were interested in how that the water levels might interact with their stormwater systems, because those are underground or their retention, detention ponds, their canals, all this system is conveying water either above or below ground. And it is draining by gravity. So if to the ocean. So if the ocean level is rising, you know, the, the slope if you will, or the rate of flow slows, slows, flows, and you see this, in Miami Beach, and all road, you know, during the spring tides, whether they just get flooded with water goes nowhere. And so they had to install these huge pumps to force the water out of the stormwater system. So the city was thinking about this, but not in the capacity to inquire about the effects of this on structural elements of building but infrastructure, but I happen to be able to get a hold of that information. And I of course, was very thankful for that. But it was not widely available. And it was rather hard to get, which is brings up another point that, you know, the NOAA data is readily available, we need groundwater data that is not, nobody's putting the two together. And the whole landscape of risk assessment really has to catch up.

Sam Yates: 13:10

You sort of found the smoking gun then when it comes to perhaps the a cause or a contributing factor to the Surfside condo. What's the reaction then to that?

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 13:22

So I think there's I'm careful and to acknowledge that in no way am I suggesting that that was the cause of the collapse. And although the grand jury report does sort of lay mentioned that this is something that needs to be considered. And it certainly has the potential to create challenges. Now these couldn't be overcome if the building is properly designed, properly inspected, and properly re maintained. But as you know, and I know in any of your listeners, that tracking just none of that has been monitored. It's just not happening. So the response has been overwhelming. Both, you know, from a professional standpoint, but also with regards of course to the media. But people nowadays with the Google and people were able to find me, you know, so I'm getting emails you know, I'm thinking about buying a home and what should I do and that's not anything that I am going to advise on a site by site. I think people have to look to their, to their local municipalities and their zoning and so on and so forth boards on that but really have gotten a lot of people expressing concern not only people that live in the coastal zone, homeowners associations and people that are thinking about buying in the coastal zone. So it's been overwhelming.

Sam Yates: 15:03

I want to dig deeper into some of your findings, I have a lot more questions I want to, to ask I try to keep our episodes in a format that allows someone to listen in a short period of time, which begs the question, can you come back for another episode?

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 15:23

As long as you're not asking me if you should buy a building in the coastal zone, I would be happy to do that.

Sam Yates: 15:28

That is something that each individual has to decide on their own. So I'll leave it to that and look forward to having you come back. I take that as a yes,

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 15:36

yes. Okay. Very good.

Sam Yates: 15:39

Now, a little bit of pre announcement before our next before our next episode, and according to a one of the executive directors of the American Council of Engineering, and the Florida Engineering Society, Alan Douglas. He says that here in Florida alone, there are 2 million people living in more than 912,000 condominium units that are 30 years or older. So think about that. Of the 1.5 million condo units in Florida. And this is Florida alone, another 131,000 or 20 to 30 years old, and more than 105,000 are more than 50 years old. Now, those are some very surprising numbers when we're thinking about what is happening to those buildings, the substructure of those building majority and communities in Florida don't require any periodic structural inspections. So there are some things that likely are going to change. Now I'm betting in our next episode that Dr. Parkinson will have some thoughts on how those inspections may need to happen, what is going to happen in the coastal zones and a whole bunch of communication that has to happen that as he indicated already hasn't happened before. So we look forward to having you come back. And we also look forward to that advice that hopefully can help avoid the tragedy that happened with the Surfside collapse. Dr. Parkinson, thank you very much again for being here on the program today.

Dr. Randall Parkinson: 17:22

Well, thank you so much for inviting me and I hope that this was helpful to your listeners.

Sam Yates: 17:27

The Florida Business Forum is dedicated to showcasing Florida businesses and CEOs of all sorts to promote their business or not for profit in the only business forum of its type in Florida. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, the Florida Business Forum is now accepting guest applications. Have a great day everyone and stay tuned for more business