Thread by @FreedomFriesInc

(1) Thread #7: #SurfsideBuildingCollapse #Surfside #SurfsideStrong

The remaining part of the building was carefully brought down in a controlled demolition last night. A memorial wall established by the public has survived:

palmbeachpost.com/story/news/202…

(2) You can find my earlier Surfside threads here:

https://twitter.com/FreedomFriesInc/status/1411183224114450437

(3) I am looking to see when the leaders of the response effort will say "search and recovery operation" instead of "rescue," after 12 days.

It will help the grief-stricken families and friends of the deceased, even though some of them may not realize that right now.

(4) I think that most of the families accept that there will be no more survivors found in the search area. In my experience, the official narrative after a disaster is often carefully controlled, and not always for the right reasons.

A range of entities share responsibility.

(5) I have speculated in earlier threads about which entities I hold responsible. Certainly the homeowners' association board, and the governance and management personnel of the city of Surfside, which has only 6,000 residents. State and federal policy also played a part.

(6) The inadequacy of building & construction oversight systems is an issue of public interest throughout the entire country.

In general, IMO the US system of government is ideal... it has lasted arguably 245 years & has ensured more opportunity & wellbeing than other systems.

(7) However, the US system of government can be slow to enable the adaptation of new technologies and practices.

Centuries ago, it made sense to allow a small town the freedom to regulate almost all aspects of life there.

(8) We now know how to build and maintain buildings that are safe and meet a number of other objectives eg cost, availability of materials and specialized skills, environmental sustainability etc.

Our political and legal systems for ensuring safety have not kept pace.

(9) I don't advocate for European style centralized control of the construction and property management industries in the US. It wouldn't work, and it shouldn't be enabled when it is so at odds with the US system of government. There does need to be change, though.

(10) IMO the best way to rapidly change the regulatory environment to prevent the next Surfside collapse (which cd happen anywhere in the US, any time) is to level-up the local authority oversight of structural safety work. No more single-official oversight of large structures.

(11) As I understand it, the city of Surfside had just one person acting as the buildings regulatory oversight official, & that person left the job & was working in nearby Doral at the time of the collapse.

He & his employer were "set up to fail." Not deliberately of course.

(12) State and federal governments can and IMO must immediately change the systems under their jurisdictions for assuring the public that structures that kill people when they fail are being monitored through a robust, transparent system of expert professional checks & balances.

(13) This is already largely the case for roads, railroads, bridges, terrain at risk of landslide, utilities like water, wastewater, power & gas, aviation, marine, and the mining and other natural resource industries.

Why allow buildings to escape the same scrutiny?

(14) There are enough suitably skilled engineers and other scientists in the US to enable the safety of the largest or highest-use buildings to be assured over the next 1-2 years.

But it will only happen if state & federal leaders make it a high enough priority & stay with it.

(15) Government has the duty of doing all it reasonably can to ensure that buildings the public use are properly assessed and managed for safety.

The government role in private buildings is partly to save lives but also to keep the economy as stable as possible, long term.

(16) Major shocks such as an earthquake like NZ experienced in 2011, or the pandemic we are all grappling with, do impact the economy a lot, for a long time.

The free market is capable, for the most part, of sending price signals that maintain stability. This is limited, by...

(17) The "market failure" of certain types of markets often require some form of government intervention. And I don't mean money. Governments can and do intervene in multiple other ways.

"Information asymmetry" causes market failure in many instances.

(18) If a friend living in a condo building invites me to stay for a few days, we are both relying on the the people responsible for assuring our safety to have done their job correctly. It's unworkable for us to have to do that every day, or arguably, at all.

(19) An engineer who designed, supervised or assessed a building, has far more information than the building's users. The information asymmetry is overcome by a number of private & public factors such as contracts & regulatory systems.

Insurance practices can be a good signal.

(20) The insurance market is one of the most efficient markets we have, bc it responds to cost changes & sends out price signals.

NZ discovered just how quickly the industry will act to save itself by passing on the cost of future major disasters. US insurers ofc do it too.

(21) Insurers will pay out after a disaster like Surfside, but they will change their coverage practices for all consumers, as they should.

That's one reason I said from Day 1 that Surfside will have a ripple effect, nationally & internationally.

Because NZ's "Surfside" did.

(22) If by chance someone associated with the building in Surfside had known in detail about the 2011 CTV building collapse in NZ it's possible the building would have been repaired in time & survived for another few decades.

Please study Surfside & prevent the next one.

CTV:

(23) It brings me no joy to say again that problems with the regulation of structural safety in Florida were seen on March 15, 2018, in Miami itself:

https://twitter.com/FreedomFriesInc/status/974361417921961984

(24) And Florida is not unique in this, nor is the USA. Every country has natural or human-made disasters & often the deaths were preventable.

The highest-population states like FL, NY, TX and CA are often singled out for criticism. We should always look for per capita data.

(25) The reason I stress the state-level responsibility is because I understand the US system of government after about 35 years of studying it.

Few things can be done at the national level in the US. Other federal countries are the same eg UK, CAN, AU.

(26) IMO the best approach is to start by looking at the building, then the city, county, and state levels of responsibility. The federal government can and must do more to assist others to do their duty. The buck-passing has to stop. That's an aspirational goal.

(27) Improvements can be made without changing the structure of government agencies or the employment of engineers. There is already abundant outsourcing of work to vendors. Safety assessment in other industries is carried out this way, and it's a relatively easy lever to use.

(28) For example, the FL state govt could require the small municipal bodies in Maimi-Dade County to upgrade the professional oversight through contractual instruments. Other counties in the state that are small could form co-operatives with nearby counties for this purpose.

(29) The smallest states in the US, along with US territories and other government-run entities could ensure their low population size does not impair the safety regulation of buildings.

Lots of details to work through but a strong public commitment to reform is the first step.

(30) The next time a structure fails and I write about it I will try not to completely lose my sh** about the issue.

Thank you for taking an interest in my threads. As always, ask me anything.

Thread #8:

https://twitter.com/FreedomFriesInc/status/1412194052636758018

Threads directory:

https://twitter.com/FreedomFriesInc/status/1411183224114450437