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Dozens of luxury condos, hotels in Miami sinking at ‘unexpected’ rates, new study reveals...
Takeaway quote though:
Experts called the study a “game changer” that raises a host of questions about development on vulnerable barrier islands. For starters, experts said, this could be a sign that rising sea levels, caused by the continued emission of greenhouse gases, is accelerating the erosion of the limestone on which South Florida is built.
EVERYTHING is globull warmering.
Except for the complete lack of measurable sea level rise.
Barrier islands are sand bars. We didn't use to care about erosion on them and they did what the name said: They were a barrier to the waves and protected the mainland. It was only after we started building on them and oceanfront property going stratospheric in value we started noticing how they would be eroded by the water.
I'm willing to bet that building tall buildings on sand is a bad plan regardless of sea level.
PS: They mention that the measured sinkage is within the expectations of the engineers who designed the buildings.
Build a big heavy concrete and steel structure on sand? What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
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But yeah, it has to be globulwarmering
Ifn you sink your support pillars deep enough you will strike hard rock. Just watch all the construction at Boca Chica, from simple 1 story buildings to huge gigantic orbital launch and integration towers. All of them sink pillars into the soft barrier land until they strike hard pan.
ReplyDeleteThing is, back in the day, during corrupt construction times in Florida, yeah, not a lot of pillars sunk to rock on a lot of those condos and old buildings.
When my brother and I were driving down to Merritt Island and back, back in '96, we passed a lot of expensive beach houses built on barrier islands, and we were commenting on how long it would be before a hurricane blew them away completely. We were pretty scathing about the sort of foolishness needed to build expensive buildings in such places.
ReplyDeleteThis takes me back to Sunday School.
ReplyDelete“The foolish man builds his house upon the sand…”
Miami and Miami Beach were a swamp with a good natural harbor. They hauled in trainloads of rock, sand, and dirt to build up the ground so it was no longer a swamp. Then they put huge buildings on the sand pile. It was destined to fail.
ReplyDeleteI can only speak with some knowledge about the barrier islands in New Jersey. The natural currents want to push the sand south, taking the sand from the northern most sections. Barnegat Inlet want to be south of its present location, cutting thru at Loveladies and the multi-million dollar homes built there. The Corpse of Engineers have spent tens if not hundred of millions of dollars trying to stabilize the channel between Island Beach and Long Beach Island. It holds up for a while until they have a number of northeastern storms in a winter and the whole process starts again.
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