Pool deck pinpointed as starting point of 2021 Surfside condo collapse, feds say

What officially caused the 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse that killed 98 people is closer to having an answer, as federal officials on Tuesday announced a tentative end to their investigation and that they’ve honed in on a singular failure in the building’s infrastructure that triggered the tragedy.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology said it plans to finish its technical work by the end of 2025 and begin drafting its reports. In the last four years, investigators initially had 12 hypotheses, which whittled down to three “higher-likelihood” scenarios.

Now evidence is reinforcing that the building’s pool deck was where the start of Champlain Towers South’s collapse occurred and not in the tower itself.

“The investigation has also identified indications of the building’s distress that were visible in the weeks before the partial collapse of the building in Surfside, Florida,” the institute said.

Go to Herald.com for the full report.