American Scientist

To the Editors:

Henry Petroski’s expert analyses of structural failures are of vital interest to all of us who must depend on infrastructure that is often past its prime, or novel and unproven. However, his most recent column, “What Lessons Will Be Learned from the Florida Condo Collapse?” (Engineering, September–October) went to print within two months of the catastrophe. I wonder whether the very timeliness of these reports necessarily leaves unsaid much that we would wish to know.

Petroski carefully avoids drawing conclusions unmerited by available data. Might not our hunger for understanding be better nourished by delaying the analysis until sufficient data is obtained? Barring that, perhaps past reports can be briefly revisited as further investigation clarifies the underlying causes of the disaster.

Jeff Freeman
Rahway, NJ

Dr. Petroski responds:

The reader is correct in noting that my column about the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse does not draw any conclusions about the ultimate cause of the catastrophe. I wrote about the tragedy within weeks of the incident because other readers of American Scientist were already asking me when I might do so.

The definitive report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is investigating the failure, is not likely to be issued for a year or so. Indeed, as I am writing this response it is two months after the collapse and NIST has just announced the composition of the expert team that will carry out the official technical investigation into the fall of the building.

I wrote my column to be timely in providing context for the collapse and to describe some early theories of what might have caused it. I expect to write a more analytical and conclusive column on the subject after NIST issues its final report.

To the Editors:

When I heard the news about the Florida condo collapse and the various inspections, I was baffled. I lived for 25 years in Milan, Italy, in a six-story building dating from about 1905. Most people there live in condos; single-family homes are rare.

As I understood the law in Milan, every building with more than four units has to hire a professional administrator, I think usually with an architecture degree. They have to belong to a professional association (albo). As it’s a part-time job, administrators typically handle several buildings in addition to their architectural work, in which they function as a general contractor. The Milan city government keeps a record of the administrator for each building.

Homeowners can delay repairs, and condo associations can likewise stall. They’re amateurs. But when there’s a professional involved, there are no excuses. He or she cuts through the complaints and fixes problems whatever the cost. It’s the law.

So I was baffled. In the United States, do condo associations operate in the same manner as owners of single-family dwellings? Is nobody enforcing anything?

Anne Aldridge
Alameda, CA

Dr. Petroski responds:

It sounds like Milan has a much better system for regulating condo buildings than Surfside, Florida, and other American cities do. My understanding is that in the United States, regulation is up to the individual cities, and I gather from anecdotal evidence that governance, operation, and maintenance of buildings varies greatly. I doubt that the federal government will get involved in this issue, and probably not even the individual states, so building regulations will continue to be a local matter and therefore vary widely in effectiveness.

As I mentioned in the article, some counties in southern Florida do require recertification of a structure before it reaches 40 years of age. Of course, that does not address what happens in the intervening years. My daughter used to live in a co-op (a New York City version of a condo), and I got the sense that if any professionals were involved in building management, they tended to be lawyers. The technical work of maintenance seemed to be handled by a general handyman. I’m sorry to say that little is likely to change in this country before other, similar collapses occur.