Five years ago, the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida, collapsed, killing 98 people. The tragedy led to a nationwide realization that a building could meet all required inspections and still be on the verge of disaster.

Florida’s New Building Safety Rules

Since then, Florida has implemented some of the strictest building safety rules in the nation. Under legislation like Senate Bill 4-D, condo boards are now required to schedule regular milestone inspections and conduct structural integrity reserve studies to determine the necessary funds for long-term structural repairs.

A prominent local expert, Greg Batista, a structural engineer based in Fort Lauderdale with over 35 years of experience, says that while Florida’s new laws are a step in the right direction, they only address a piece of the puzzle. Batista warns that the current rules only provide periodic snapshots of a building’s health, rather than continuous oversight.

The issue lies in the breakdown of concrete, which can occur unevenly and quietly deep inside the walls. Corrosion of the reinforcing steel inside a concrete column can move rapidly in Florida’s humid and salty coastal environment, causing a building’s structural health to drop quickly between official checkups.

Technology exists to address this gap, with modern structural monitoring equipment allowing engineers to track building strain, vibrations, moisture, and active corrosion around the clock. Other nations, including Japan, Switzerland, and China, have already incorporated continuous monitoring into their oversight rules for high-risk buildings.

Batista emphasizes that corrosion is inevitable in coastal concrete buildings, but structural decay is not. The difference lies in whether we are watching and acting on what we learn.

Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.