The latest on the partial building collapse near Miami

Older buildings like the one in Surfside, Florida, are frequently seeing sea level rise and saltwater intrusion as greater risks, a structural engineer tells CNN.

Ben Schafer, a structural engineer at Johns Hopkins University, says civil engineers need to rethink how buildings are designed and how older buildings need to be reassessed.

Buildings with concrete and steel reinforcements aren’t designed to be submersed in sea water, which it damages concrete and corrodes the steel. As sea level rises, more tidal flooding will bring in more saltwater into coastal infrastructure. 

“The life of the structure would be greatly shortened,” he adds. “It’s a corrosive environment. It’s not favorable for concrete or steel, which are your primary building materials.”

If climate change was in fact a contributing factor to the building collapse, Schafer adds that engineers must learn from the tragic event and implement climate mitigation systems.  

“I don’t think we’ve owned up even to the scale of the problem,” Schafer said. “If you look at the median sea level-rise predictions and project that on to city maps, the scale of what we need to do is so far beyond the scale of what we’re so far considering,” he said.

Sea level in Surfside, Florida, has risen roughly 7 to 8 inches in the past 40 years, due mainly to human-caused climate change, according to Brian McNoldy, a climate and weather researcher at the University of Miami.

The higher sea level increases the frequency of high-tide floods in the Miami area.

As sea level rises, McNoldy said, salt water can degrade infrastructure and infiltrate freshwater wells.

While being careful not to assign blame for the Surfside condo collapse, McNoldy added, “I don’t think I need to be an engineer to conclude this, but any time things are submerged in saltwater, it becomes harsh on them — it doesn’t matter what that material is.”

“We do know that in the past 25 years, sea level has risen almost 6 inches [in the Miami area]," McNoldy told CNN. "If we go back 40 years, we’ve probably seen about 7 to 8 inches of sea level rise and what that does, some low-lying places that maybe didn’t used to flood are starting to now, and places that maybe always did have some issues during exceptionally high tides have even worse issues now.”

McNoldy stressed that the sea level rise has been “across the board around here,” indicating that the influx of rising sea water would be affecting all the structures along the coastline.

A structural engineer from Washington, DC, has been called to investigate the Florida condo collapse by the town of Surfside.

Allyn Kilsheimer, the chairman of the board of KCE Structural Engineers, a Washington, DC, firm, told CNN correspondent Brian Todd on Tuesday that he has about 30 theories for what could've triggered the condo to collapse just after midnight on Thursday.

He was asked to visit by an attorney on behalf of Surfside, Florida, on Friday morning, and arrived that afternoon. 

He told CNN that possible triggers could be "an explosion from below, a car hitting a column, problems with the roof slab collapsing down and therefore dropping everything else, problems in the foundation, all that kind of stuff."

From what Kilsheimer has initially investigated, he said that he hasn't seen anything from the condo that told him people needed to get out of that building immediately.

So far, Kilsheimer said he's had access to the perimeter of the site, but "should have access to various portions of the site and the building during the day today."

Kilsheimer also inspected the garages of nearby buildings. He said, "I didn't see anything that would make me think the buildings are in danger of collapse."

For those who are concerned about their own condos, Kilsheimer suggests hiring a registered Florida structural engineer, "not an inspector, not an architect, not a contractor. A structural engineer."

The mayor of Miami-Dade County said Tuesday she would support the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office opening a grand jury investigation into the catastrophic collapse at Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida.

Levine Cava said there is currently a grand jury impaneled which is working on other issues. It has not been decided if they would take up this case, or if it would fall to the next grand jury that is seated. 

The mayor promised she will do everything she can to ensure this does not happen again. “This will never ever happen again, not on my watch. We are going to do everything we possibly can to ensure that," Levine Cava said.

Earlier today, she said she has been speaking to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle about the matter.  

The commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit said Tuesday the collapsed bedrooms from the Champlain Towers South building are under 13 to 16 feet of concrete.

“This building collapsed very, very badly, if I can use this word, because it collapsed into itself. And the bedrooms that we are looking for, because the people [slept] in the bedrooms are under four or five meters of concrete,” Col. Golan Vach, commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday.

Vach said his team is comprised of 15 people who are mostly engineers and search and rescue experts. He said his team found new spaces in the rubble to search Monday and Tuesday.

“So there is still hope,” Vach said. “Until one week, I have a solid hope that we will find someone. After one week, it’s minor.” 

He said he had never seen a collapse like the one at Champlain Towers South.

On Thursday morning, Francesco Cordaro and his wife watched on TV as their apartment building in Surfside partially collapsed. At home in Staten Island, New York, they had planned to move to South Florida full-time for retirement.

“The ocean view. The size. The location. I loved everything about that apartment,” said Cordaro, 65, who says he and his wife were in Surfside last month. “All my dreams are shattered.”

Cordaro purchased the apartment in January 2019. That month, he says, he attended a Champlain Towers South condo association meeting where the upcoming 40-year recertification was discussed, along with minor bureaucratic items, but there was no mention of any structural issues in the tower. 

For his part, Cordaro says earlier this month he paid out just over $95,000 for his portion of the building’s “special assessment fee” in connection to the recertification. He says he has not yet hired any legal representation to recoup damages “out of respect” for the tower’s missing residents.

As rescuers continue to look for people in the rubble of a collapsed condo building in Surfside, Florida, the Biden administration is outlining the federal response to the disaster.

Here's what is included, according to one official:

The President is expected to travel to Surfside with first lady Jill Biden on Thursday.

The condo collapse is on track to become the largest mass casualty event of the Biden presidency so far, with at least 11 people dead and 150 unaccounted for.

After Champlain Towers South partially collapsed in Surfside, Florida, last Thursday, questions continue to be asked about the building’s structural integrity.

While the official cause of the collapse remains unknown, local and federal officials have begun efforts to try to determine why the building partially collapsed, and also prevent similar events from happening in neighboring buildings.

Here’s everything you need to know about the investigation so far:

Read more about the rescue efforts and investigation here.

CNN's Curt Devine, Hollie Silverman, Alyssa Kraus, Deanna Hackney and Jamiel Lynch contributed reporting to this post. 

The mayor of Miami-Dade County said Tuesday said she would support the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office opening a grand jury investigation into the catastrophic collapse at Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said, “the grand jury has not yet been impaneled,” but she has been speaking to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. 

CNN reached out to Fernandez Rundle’s office, who said a statement is forthcoming. 

“We were talking about whenever it is moving forward, that we will be fully on board,” Levine Cava said.

“I am very supportive of the grand jury investigation,” Levine Cava said. “I have pledged my full cooperation, as she moves forward.”

Levine Cava noted that she is very familiar with the grand jury process.