My heart goes out to the victims and their family members in Surfside, FL. I feel like there’s a simple explanation but I’m not understanding how the demolition of the other side of the condo building didn’t seal a possible survivors’s death with more concrete and rubble falling?
In: Engineering
You have to balance the risks involved.
Demolishing the remaining side of the structure will create risks to anyone still alive in the fallen side – rubble still being supported on the existing structure may shift, or vibrations from the work may cause the pile to settle further.
The question is whether delaying the demolition will provide you a better chance of saving any remaining trapped people, or whether leaving the structure standing will create risk for the rescuers still working.
Demolish the structure in a controlled fashion now and there is a chance someone that is still alive and trapped dies.
Leave the structure standing and there is a chance it will collapse itself in an uncontrolled fashion and kill rescuers.
It isn’t a fun decision to make, but someone needs to do it. At first there is a better chance of finding survivors and so rescuers will take the risk, but as time goes on the chance of finding survivors drops you have to reconsider that risk.
It is especially notable here because they are also considering the potential effects of a tropical storm and the damage it could cause, which has perhaps brought the demolition forwards to try and prevent it collapsing uncontrolled in the storm.
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