JUNE 29, 2021
TUESDAY
 
PROGRESSIVE OPINION AND NEWS
 
 
AS WE WHO ARE UNINJURED WATCH THIS PAIN EMERGING DAILY IN STORIES AND VIDEOS, SOME SPECIFIC CAUSES ARE COMING TO LIGHT, AND SOME BLAME. YET, A BUILDING ENGINEER SAYS THAT THOUGH THERE WAS KNOWN DAMAGE THAT NEEDED REPAIR, IT DID NOT APPEAR TO SHOW AN IMMINENT DISASTER OF THE SORT THAT HAS OCCURRED HERE. THE FACT REMAINS THAT AN ENGINEER’S REPORT SOME THREE YEARS EARLIER WAS NOT ACTED UPON NEARLY AS SOON AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF ANOTHER HIGHRISE A SHORT DISTANCE AWAY HAD CAUSED SHAKING AND CRACKS WITHIN THE APARTMENTS. IT WASN’T WITHOUT WARNING. I CAN ONLY IMAGINE THE FEARS OF THOSE WHO LIVED THERE WHEN THOSE THINGS OCCURRED, AND HOW NEIGHBORING RESIDENTS ARE NOW FEELING ABOUT THEIR OWN SAFETY. THIS IS ALL VERY, VERY SAD.
 
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/29/us/florida-condo-shaking-construction-invs/index.html
'Shaking all the time:' Surfside condo owners complained of luxury tower being built next door
By Casey Tolan, CNN
Updated 7:37 PM ET, Tue June 29, 2021
 
VIDEO -- Man avoids condo collapse after girlfriend requests he stay with her, CNN, 06:28 MIN 
 
(CNN) Two and a half years before her building collapsed into a pile of rubble, Champlain Towers South resident Mara Chouela dashed off the latest in a string of angry complaints about the development project next door.
 
"We are concerned that the construction next to Surfside is too close," Chouela, a board member of the condo association, wrote in a January 2019 email to a building official in her Florida town. Workers were "digging too close to our property and we have concerns regarding the structure of our building," she wrote, attaching photos of construction equipment directly across from her building's property wall.
 
Just 28 minutes later, the official, Rosendo Prieto, responded that "there is nothing for me to check." The reason why: The offending development, an ultra-luxury tower known as Eighty Seven Park, was directly across the border separating the town of Surfside from the city of Miami Beach, which runs between the two buildings.
 
In the wake of the Champlain Towers South disaster, Eighty Seven Park is facing new scrutiny: Champlain residents had complained that construction on the neighboring building would regularly cause their units to shake, according to friends and family members of the condo owners, as well as emails released by the town.
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- Ultra-luxury tower known as Eighty Seven Park, left, across from the ruins at Champlain Towers South.
 
There's no evidence that the construction of Eighty Seven Park, which took place between 2016 and 2019, contributed to the collapse.
 
"We are confident that the construction of 87 Park did not cause or contribute to the collapse that took place in Surfside," the development group behind Eighty Seven Park said in a statement to CNN Tuesday.
 
But the 18-story tower would not have been allowed to be built across the border in Surfside, where buildings are subject to a 12-story height limit (although Champlain Towers itself received an exemption in the 1980s to add nine extra feet, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday).
 
That height limit doesn't apply in Miami Beach. The new tower looms over its now-ruined neighbor, its sleek, glass curves contrasting with the workmanlike stucco and concrete balconies of the section of Champlain South that's still standing.
 
Magaly "Maggie" Ramsey told CNN her mother Magaly Delgado, who is among the unaccounted for Champlain residents, had been concerned about the work being done next door.
 
"She did complain of a lot of tremors and things that were being done to the other building that she sometimes was concerned what may be happening to her building -- that might be putting it at risk," Ramsey said.
 
RELATED ARTICLE -- This is what we know about the dead and unaccounted for in the Miami condo collapse
 
The new tower was designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano -- and billed as the starchitect's "first residential project in the Western Hemisphere." Its units are selling for millions of dollars, far more than most of those in Champlain South, and an outlier in what has historically been a more middle-class neighborhood of Miami Beach.
 
Eighty Seven Park's owners have included the world's top ranked tennis player: Novak Djokovic bought a ninth-floor condo in the building in 2019 and sold it earlier this month, according to property records -- less than two weeks before the deadly collapse.
 
Peter Dyga, the president and CEO of Associated Builders and Contractors, said that the likelihood of the Eighty Seven Park construction "being a significant cause" in the Surfside collapse "is slim, but no lead or idea should be excluded."
"There's probably going to be multiple things in the end that have contributed in some way or another," he said. "Still, buildings are built next to buildings all the time, and it doesn't mean that they come down."
 
He said minor shaking would not be unusual.
 
There are plenty of other potential causes: Engineering reports and a letter from the building's condo association have documented examples of structural damage in the doomed tower, with a 2018 report warning of "abundant cracking" in the concrete of the building's parking garage.
 
The residents' struggle with the developer across the border became a topic of conversation in Surfside. Marta Castro, a former member of the board of Champlain Towers East, a nearby building built by the same developer as Champlain Towers South, said she had heard many complaints from her friends and neighbors in the south building about the Eighty Seven Park construction.
 
"Everyone in town knew the problems they were facing," she told CNN. "My neighbors could feel the vibration -- they protested, they complained, nothing happened. I signed so many petitions."
 
And Eliana Salzhauer, a Surfside town commissioner, said she had heard from residents saying that the building "was shaking all the time" during construction.
 
"They were very traumatized and shook up," she said.
 
Debris, noise and a lack of response
 
Records released by the town showed that Champlain South residents sent a series of outraged emails to Terra Group, one of the Eighty Seven Park developers, complaining about construction debris, noise and the lack of response, and often attaching photos and videos.
 
"I am shocked and disappointed to see the lack of consideration and respect that Terra has shown our residents," Anette Goldstein, a condo board member, wrote to executives with the developer. "You have said you want to be a good neighbor... This is truly outrageous and quite unprecedented from what we hear from other associations in the area that have dealt with construction beside them."
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- In this aerial view, search and rescue personnel work after the partial collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building. Eighty Seven Park is to the left.
 
An executive with Terra replied that construction workers had addressed or were in the process of fixing several specific issues, including plastic foam that was clogging the Champlain pool and unsecured tarps that were noisily flapping in the wind.
 
The emails released by Surfside so far don't show the residents specifically complaining to Terra about the building shaking, or bringing up the possibility of structural damage with the developer directly.
 
Miami Beach employees responded to more than 50 noise complaints at the building's address between 2016 and 2019, most of which specified construction noise, and the developers were fined for excessive noise at least eight times, according to city records. But there doesn't appear to have been any code enforcement cases specifically related to alleged shaking caused by construction.
 
A Miami Beach spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about whether building officials in the city were aware of the complaints from Champlain Towers residents or planned to investigate the issue in the wake of the disaster. Prieto, the former Surfside building official, also did not respond.
 
Miami Beach approved the Eighty Seven Park development in 2015, with a review board allowing a height increase from 60 feet to 200 feet, according to news reports at the time. As part of the approval, Terra agreed to build public walking paths from the street to the beach and pay the city $10.5 million for improvements in a nearby park and other infrastructure upgrades. In exchange, the developer took over the right-of-way of the street, 87th Terrace, separating the development from Champlain South.
 
Joy Malakoff, who served as a Miami Beach commissioner at the time, said she hadn't heard any complaints from Surfside residents about the construction. "As far as I know, Eighty Seven Park was very carefully built, well built, and expensively built," Malakoff said.
 
The development had previously faced controversy over its demolition of the Biltmore Terrace Hotel, designed by well-known Miami architect Morris Lapidus, which was previously at the site. The hotel had not been protected by historic preservation rules, but Terra had originally said it would renovate the hotel and add a condo building to the property alongside it.
 
Instead, it tore down the hotel, saying the project wasn't viable. Some community activists to complained of a "bait-and-switch," the Miami Herald reported at the time.
 
Malakoff said that the hotel was in disrepair. "There were some preservationists who really fought to keep it, but it was past its life," she said.
 
Now, the condo tower is among the priciest in the city. Its penthouse came to market in 2019 asking $68 million, a price that would have been the highest paid for any condo ever sold in Florida, according to The Wall Street Journal. (It eventually sold for a mere $37 million.)
 
A $10.9 million four-bedroom condo in the building was posted on the real estate website Zillow earlier this month -- with photos showing an expansive view looking down on what is now a pile of ruins. 
 
 
THE NEW YORK TIMES GIVES A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE GRAVITY EXPRESSED IN THE 2018 STRUCTURAL REPORT. “THE WORK WAS FINALLY ABOUT TO GET UNDERWAY,” AFTER THREE YEARS.
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us/miami-building-collapse-investigation.html
Engineer Warned of ‘Major Structural Damage’ at Florida Condo Complex
A consultant in 2018 urged the managers to repair cracked columns and crumbling concrete. The work was finally about to get underway when the building collapsed.
By Mike Baker, Anjali Singhvi and Patricia Mazzei
Published June 26, 2021
Updated June 29, 2021, 8:12 p.m. ET
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- A structural engineer detailed a range of problems at the Champlain Towers South complex, including poor waterproofing at the base of the building. Credit...Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
 
Three years before the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex near Miami, a consultant found alarming evidence of “major structural damage” to the concrete slab below the pool deck and “abundant” cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the 13-story building.
 
The engineer’s report helped shape plans for a multimillion-dollar repair project that was set to get underway soon — more than two and a half years after the building managers were warned — but the building suffered a catastrophic collapse in the middle of the night on Thursday, crushing sleeping residents in a massive heap of debris.
 
The complex’s management association had disclosed some of the problems in the wake of the collapse, but it was not until city officials released the 2018 report late Friday that the full nature of the concrete and rebar damage — most of it probably caused by persistent water leaks and years of exposure to the corrosive salt air along the South Florida coast — became chillingly apparent.
 
“Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion,” the consultant, Frank Morabito, wrote about damage near the base of the structure as part of his October 2018 report on the 40-year-old building in Surfside, Fla. He gave no indication that the structure was at risk of collapse, though he noted that the needed repairs would be aimed at “maintaining the structural integrity” of the building and its 136 units.
 
In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Morabito’s firm, Morabito Consulting, said it provided the condo association with both an assessment of the “extensive and necessary repairs” needed and an estimate of how much they would cost.
 
“Among other things, our report detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete, which required repairs to ensure the safety of the residents and the public,” the statement said.
 
Emails show that the secretary of the condo association forwarded the report to an official in the town’s building department on Nov. 13, 2018. The town did not disclose any further correspondence related to the report.
 
Mayor Charles W. Burkett of Surfside said on Saturday he did not know what, if any, steps were taken to examine the problems further.
 
“Of course there should have been follow up,” he said. “And I don’t know that there wasn’t. I think we need to understand exactly what happened at that time.”
 
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County said officials there knew nothing of the 2018 report. On Saturday, she announced a 30-day audit of all buildings 40 years and older under the county’s jurisdiction, and she urged cities to do the same for buildings within their borders.
 
“We want to make sure that every building has completed their recertification process,” she said. “And we want to make sure to move quickly to remediate any issues that may have been identified in that process.”
 
The condominium complex had been preparing for the recertification that state law requires of similar buildings in the area that have reached 40 years of age, and was on notice that it needed to complete the repairs in order to pass inspection.
 
But solving the problem of water leaking down from the pool area into the garage was going to involve major work and cost millions of dollars. Brad Sohn, a lawyer representing at least one resident who has filed a lawsuit against the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association, said on Saturday that residents were facing assessments ranging from $80,000 to as high as $200,000.
 
Mr. Sohn said he was still trying to understand why repairs had not begun immediately after the 2018 report outlining the major problems with the building.
 
“There is no acceptable answer to that question — period, full stop,” he said.
 
Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer who represents the resident-led association that operates the building, said on Saturday that while the report outlined problems to fix, the condo board had no warning that there was a major safety risk.
 
“If there was anything in that report that really outlined that the building was in danger of collapse, or there was a hazardous condition, would the board and their families be living there?” she said. She noted that one board member, Nancy Kress Levin, was missing in the collapse, as were her adult children.
 
The association had taken out a $12 million line of credit to pay for the repairs and was going through a careful, step-by-step process to get them done, Ms. Berger said. She said that such a process could seem more like moving a commercial tanker than a speedboat, always involving pushback and debate as board members decided on what to tackle first and how much of a cost to impose on homeowners. “Nobody likes a special assessment,” she said.
 
The coronavirus pandemic also slowed progress on getting repairs underway, she said.
 
Eliana Salzhauer, a Surfside commissioner, said that while the cause of the collapse was unknown, it appeared to her that the problems identified by the engineer in the 2018 report could have contributed to the structural failure.
 
“It’s upsetting to see these documents because the condo board was clearly made aware that there were issues,” Ms. Salzhauer said. “And it seems from the documents that the issues were not addressed.”
 
A former Surfside building official who said Champlain Towers South was ‘in very good shape’ is on a leave of absence.
 
Teams of rescuers at the collapsed condo site have a long history of joining forces.
 
Officials say an emergency audit has not yet found any other nearby buildings at risk of collapse.

Investigators have yet to identify the cause and are still awaiting full access to a site where rescue crews have been urgently sifting through an unstable pile of debris for possible survivors.
 
On Saturday, local officials said they had not given up hope of finding live victims beneath the rubble but acknowledged the difficulty of their task. A fire was burning below the debris of the collapsed building, sending smoke billowing into the air, complicating the search. Rescuers said they were not hearing any signs of life, and 156 people remained missing.
 
Experts said that the process of assessing what ultimately caused the building’s structure to fail could take months, involving a review of individual building components that may now be buried in debris, the testing of concrete to assess its integrity and an examination of the earth below to see if a sinkhole or other subsidence was responsible for the collapse.
 
The building was just entering the recertification process for aging structures that have endured the punishment of coastal Florida’s hurricanes, storm surges and the corrosive salty air that can penetrate concrete and rust the rebar and steel beams inside.
 
PHOTOGRAPHS -- Images from a 2018 report by the structural engineer Frank Morabito on the Champlain Towers South condominium.Credit...Morabito Consultants, via Town of Surfside
 
The 40-year requirement was put in place after a previous building collapse in Miami, in 1974, that killed seven people. The Drug Enforcement Administration, which operated in the building, said officials later determined that the resurfacing of a parking lot on the roof of the building, combined with salt, had weakened the supporting steel structure of the building.
 
Mr. Morabito wrote in the 2018 report that the goal of his study was to understand and document the extent of structural issues that would require repair or remediation.
 
“These documents will enable the Condominium Board to adequately assess the overall condition of the building, notify tenants on how they may be affected, and provide a safe and functional infrastructure for the future,” he wrote.
 
At the ground level of the complex, vehicles can drive in next to a pool deck where residents would lounge in the sun. Mr. Morabito in 2018 said that the waterproofing below the pool deck and entrance drive was failing, “causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas.”
 
The report added that “failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.” The problem, he said, was that the waterproofing was laid on a concrete slab that was flat, not sloped in a way that would allow water to run off, an issue he called a “major error” in the original design. The replacement would be “extremely expensive,” he warned, and cause a major disturbance to residents.
 
In the parking garage, which largely sits at the bottom level of the building, part of it under the pool deck, Mr. Morabito said that there were signs of distress and fatigue.
 
“Abundant cracking and spalling of varying degrees was observed in the concrete columns, beams, and walls,” Mr. Morabito wrote. He included photos of cracks in the columns of the parking garage as well as concrete crumbling — a process engineers refer to as “spalling” — that exposed steel reinforcements on the garage deck.
 
PHOTOGRAPHS -- Images from the 2018 report. Credit...Morabito Consultants, via Town of Surfside
 
Mr. Morabito noted that previous attempts to patch the concrete with epoxy were failing, resulting in more cracking and spalling. In one such spot, he said, “new cracks were radiating from the originally repaired cracks.”
 
The report also identified a host of other problems: Residents were complaining of water coming through their windows and balcony doors, and the concrete on many balconies also was deteriorating.
 
After watching a surveillance video showing the collapse of the building, Evan Bentz, a professor at the University of Toronto and an expert in structural concrete, said that whatever had caused the collapse would have to have been somewhere near the bottom of the building, perhaps around the parking level. Though he had not seen the 2018 report at the time, he said such a collapse could have several possible explanations, including a design mistake, a materials problem, a construction error or a maintenance error.
 
“I’d be surprised if there was just one cause,” Mr. Bentz said. “There would have to be multiple causes for it to have fallen like that.”
 
There have been other concerns raised about the complex over the years. One resident filed a lawsuit in 2015 alleging that poor maintenance had allowed water to enter her unit through cracks in an outside wall. Some residents expressed concern that blasting during construction at a neighboring complex had rattled their units.
 
Researchers analyzing space-based radar had also identified land that was sinking at the property in the 1990s. The 2020 study found subsidence in other areas of the region, but on the east side of the barrier island where Surfside is, the condo complex was the only place where the issue was detected.
 
Morobito Consultants said the company was engaged in June of 2020 to prepare a “repair and restoration plan” for fixes needed under the state recertification requirements. At the time of the collapse this week, the company said, roof repairs were underway but concrete restoration, which was to be handled by another firm, had not begun.
 
The collapse has stunned industry experts in the Miami area, including John Pistorino, a consulting engineer who designed the 40-year reinspection program when he was consulting for the county in the 1970s.
 
He touted other regulations that have come since, including requirements that tall buildings have an independent engineer verify that construction is going according to plans.
 
Mr. Pistorino did not want to speculate on the cause of the collapse. But he said that while some buildings in the region have had quality problems, any serious deficiencies were unusual, and were typically easy to detect by way of glaring cracks or other visible problems.
 
“This is so out of the norm,” Mr. Pistorino said. “This is something I cannot fathom or understand what happened.”
 
James Glanz , Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Joseph B. Treaster contributed to this report.
 
RELATED ARTICLES -- Florida Condominium Collapse
*Frustration Mounts in Search for Survivors of Condo Collapse Near Miami, June 25, 2021
*Among the Missing: Retirees, Families and a Woman on Her First Trip Abroad, June 25, 2021
*Harrowing Condo Collapse Near Miami Prompts Frantic Search for Survivors, June 24, 2021
 
Mike Baker is the Seattle bureau chief, reporting primarily from the Northwest and Alaska. @ByMikeBaker
 
Anjali Singhvi is a graphics editor. She is a trained architect and holds a master's degree in urban planning/urban analytics from Columbia University. @singhvianjali
 
Patricia Mazzei is the Miami bureau chief, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. Before joining The Times, she was the political writer for The Miami Herald. She was born and raised in Venezuela, and is bilingual in Spanish. @PatriciaMazzei • Facebook
 
A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2021, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Major’ Concrete Damage Was Cited in 2018 Report On South Florida Towers. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe 
 
 
https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/ground-under-collapsed-florida-condo-had-been-shifting-since-1990s-geologist-says/
Collapsed Florida condo building had been shifting since 1990s, geologist says
FLORIDA
by: Sam Sachs, The Associated Press
Posted: Jun 24, 2021 / 04:37 PM EDT / Updated: Jun 25, 2021 / 07:20 AM EDT
 
MIAMI, Fla. (NBC/WFLA) – A study of the land around the Chamberlain Towers which partially collapsed in the Miami area on Thursday showed the building was moving even as far back as the 1990s, a geologist from Florida International University told NBC South Florida.
 
“The data was collected in the 1990s, from ’93 to ’99, and we can see in that area, we identified that that particular building was moving between ’93 and ’99,” Dr. Shimon Wdowinski, an associate professor of Earth and Environment, said. “That was unusual because we didn’t expect to see movement in the eastern part of the city, mostly in the western part of the city. So we recorded that.”
 
PHOTOGRAPHS -- South Florida condo collapse: Photos show devastating damage, emotional search for survivors
 
Wdowinski’s research has focused on the development and usage of space geodetic techniques that can detect very precisely small movements of the Earth’s surface, according to his staff biography at FIU.
 
Wdowinski told NBC South Florida that the area Chamberlain Towers was built on in 1981 was generally pretty stable, but the area on the west part of the city was where they noticed movement. He says the area isn’t sinking, but that the movement could be caused by a few different things.
 
“What we recorded is that the building moved, so we collected more data, but it doesn’t mean the whole thing is moving, just the building itself,” Wdowinski said. “I think the issue is with the building itself. The situation is very unique to that building, that we identified in the study 20 to 30 years ago. It means that it’s not something that happened yesterday, it’s been going on for a long period of time.”
 
VIDEO -- ‘It looks like a bomb hit’: Video shows moment condo building collapsed near Miami Beach
 
A wing of the 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed early Thursday morning. As of Thursday afternoon, authorities confirmed at least one person was dead and 99 others were unaccounted for. Crews had been working throughout the day to search for any survivors in the rubble.
 
The seaside condo development was built in 1981 in the southeast corner of Surfside. One survivor from the Thursday morning collapse said he had raised concerns several years ago about nearby construction and whether it was causing damage to the building.
 
“That particular building moved. It can be for different reasons. It can be because the foundation moved downward,” said Wdowinski. “It’s very localized, and we suspected it was something with the building itself and not the entire area.”
 
RELATED ARTICLE -- South Florida condo collapse: How will experts figure out what caused building to fall?
 
Wdowinski said the fact that the building was built on reclaimed wetlands did not factor into the tragic events. He said it was built on “pretty stable land.”
 
“The ground is very stable. I think the issue is with the building itself. The situation is very unique to that building.”
 
The movement the study detected was reported to a committee that dealt with subjects like sea-level rise, which was what the study was performed to research.
 
Copyright 2021 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
  
 
NOT SO “UNIQUE” AFTER ALL
 
https://nypost.com/2021/06/25/experts-who-said-florida-condo-was-sinking-found-similar-issues-nearby/
Researchers who found Florida condo was sinking reported similar issues nearby
By Ben FeuerherdJune 25, 2021 | 12:41pm | Updated 
 
RELATED ARTICLES -- MORE ON FLORIDA BUILDING COLLAPSE
*Ex-Florida building official on leave at new job after damning condo report
*Death toll in Florida condo collapse rises to 12, 149 still missing
*Media keep trying — and failing — to take down Florida’s Ron DeSantis
*Celebs including Joe Jonas and Bethenny Frankel help at building collapse
 
Two researchers who found that the collapsed Miami-Dade condo building was sinking for years before it crumbled to the ground Thursday had identified several other areas of the city that had similar subsidence issues, according to a study published last year.
 
The paper, authored by Shimon Wdowinski and Simone Fiaschi, determined the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside had been sinking by a rate of 1.9 mm per year from 1993 to 1999 before it collapsed on Thursday.
 
The researchers also identified several other areas of the city that were subsiding at faster rates during those years, according to the study, which was published by the journal Ocean and Coastal Management.
 
About a mile and a half south of the Champlain Towers, the ground on Park View Island was seeping down at an average rate of 2.3 mm a year, according to graphs published in the study.
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- Photo released by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue shows first responders rescuing survivors from a partially collapsed residential building in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the United States, on June 24, 2021. At least three people were dead, and 12 others injured, while 99 people were possibly missing after the 12-story residential building partially collapsed early Thursday in Miami-Dade County, local media reported.Dade Fire Rescue - U.S. Florida Miami Dade Building Collapse.
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- The paper, authored by Shimon Wdowinski and Simone Fiaschi, determined the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside had been sinking by a rate of 1.9 mm per year from 1993 to 1999 before it collapsed.   CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Shutterstock
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- MIAMI-DADE, June 25, 2021 (Xinhua) - Photo released by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue shows a partially collapsed residential building in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the United States, on June 24, 2021. At least three people were dead, and 12 others injured, while 99 people were possibly missing after the 12-story residential building partially collapsed early Thursday in Miami-Dade County, local media reported. Dade Fire Rescue - U.S. Florida Miami Dade Building Collapse - 25 Jun 2021
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- “I looked at it this morning and said, ‘Oh my God.’ We did detect that,” Shimon Wdowinski told USA Today.   CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Shutterstock
 
And about seven miles south of Park View Island, two areas under the Flamingo/Lummus neighborhood in Miami Beach were sinking at a rate of 2.0 mm per year, according to the data.
 
North Bay Village, an island between Miami and Miami Beach, was also sinking, but the researchers did not include an average rate of the decline, the study shows.
 
One of the authors of the study told USA Today that he was stunned when he saw news of the building collapse and remembered the study.
 
“I looked at it this morning and said, ‘Oh my God.’ We did detect that,” Wdowinski told the newspaper.
 
SEE ALSO RELATED ARTICLE
*Security footage shows Florida condo being pelted with debris before collapse
 
He added that the findings do not certainly point to that being the cause of the collapse, but said the level of sinking results in “impacts to buildings and their structures,” the newspaper reported.
 
The former mayor of Surfside cautioned people about drawing conclusions about the cause of the collapse.
 
“This is an extraordinarily unusual event, and it is dangerous and counterproductive to speculate on its cause,” Daniel Dietch told USA Today.
 
PHOTOGRAPH -- Maria Fernanda Martinez, left, and Mariana Corderiro, right, of Boca Raton, Fla., stand outside of a 12-story beachfront condo building which partially collapsed, Friday, June 25, 2021, in the Surfside area of Miami. The apartment building partially collapsed on Thursday.
 
The two [researchers] who found that the collapsed Miami-Dade condo was sinking before it crumbled had identified other areas of the city that had similar issues.
 
AP
 
FILED UNDER -- BUILDINGS , FLORIDA , FLORIDA BUILDING COLLAPSE , MIAMI, 6/25/21
 
 
 
THE CORROSIVE EFFECT OF SEAWATER ON BOTH CONCRETE AND REBAR ARE THE FOCUS OF ANOTHER ENGINEER. WITH A RISING SEA LEVEL, THE POSSIBILITY THAT THERE WILL BE MORE OF THESE OR SIMILAR EVENTS SEEMS HEIGHTENED.
 
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2021/06/25/engineer-suggests-corrosion-might-be-to-blame-for-champlain-towers-south-partial-collapse/
Engineer suggests corrosion might be to blame for Champlain Towers South partial collapse
Engineer Asher Cohen says the condo’s builders didn’t have access to modern construction technology
Tarik Minor, Anchor, I-TEAM reporter
Published: June 25, 2021 4:42 pm
Updated: June 25, 2021 9:08 pm
Tags: Champlain Towers South, Saltwater Corrosion, Surfside, South Florida
 
VIDEO – NEWS REPORT I-TEAM, WJXT 4, JACKSONVILLE, FL, 06:08 MIN.
 
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The federal government is sending a team of scientists and engineers to Surfside, Florida, to find out if Thursday’s deadly condo collapse should result in a broader investigation that could have implications for building codes nationwide.
 
The six scientists and engineers dispatched to South Florida are from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the same government agency tasked with investigating structural failures at the World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacks.
 
On Friday, News4Jax spoke with Asher Cohen, a forensic engineer with U.S. Forensic, who said one of the potential causes at the top of his list would be saltwater corrosion of both concrete and rebar, two staples when it comes to construction.
 
“It’s something that we have to absolutely consider,” Cohen told News4Jax. “It’s not even a stretch to put this at the top of the list. It’s not like it’s something new.”
 
The Champlain Towers South Condominium, which was set to undergo its 40-year inspection, was built in the early 1980s, according to published reports. Back then, Cohen said, builders didn’t have access to the same type of materials used in modern construction.
 
These days, he said, there are different chemicals and substances that are used to reinforce concrete and steel that will protect building materials from the elements, such as saltwater, and help them stand up to the test of time.
 
“They add mixtures to concrete to stop corrosion to some extent, but not eliminate it outright,” he said. “Obviously the rebar itself, coated rebar, steel rebar, galvanized rebar, has been used, as well as other types of alloys that protect it from corrosion.”
 
Thursday morning’s collapse left at least four people dead and dozens more missing or unaccounted for.
 
Cohen said saltwater can seep into concrete through existing cracks in the building. Over time, he said, the chlorides corrode areas that can’t be seen. He described the result as spalling, which happens when the steel inside the concrete expands.
 
“We can see this usually when it starts happening, and it gives us a warning,” he said. “We see a crack, maybe we see some corrosion staining, a red type of staining. Or on the underside of that slab, as the corroded steel starts to expand, it causes spalling and actually blows the concrete out. And this happens over many, many years.”
 
Cohen told News4Jax he has confidence that the engineers who were preparing for the building’s 40-year inspection didn’t notice any evidence signaling a catastrophic failure of this magnitude. He hopes when the cause of the collapse is identified, Florida’s building codes will be upgraded.
 
“Sadly, in the history of humanity, we have learned from most failure,” he said. “And it’s just a tragedy human lives were lost. We’ll learn from this and get better. I’m sure there will be new legislation, rules, regulations, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
 
Copyright 2021 by WJXT News4Jax - All rights reserved.
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tarik Minor
Tarik anchors the 4, 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. weekday newscasts and reports with the I-TEAM.
 
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PROGRESSIVES -- HUMBLE BOOK OFFERINGS FROM THIS SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHOR 
 
Lucy Warner
June 27, 2021
 
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Lulu is lots of fun if you like to edit and deal with a slightly tricky interactive program. You can either design your own cover art or select one of Lulu's standard cover decorations and insert photos, etc. into the text itself. The cost to publish  runs from free to a few hundred dollars. Simply to get it into print is free. Listing on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. costs under $100.00. More extensive advertising or editing and advice cost more. The writer chooses the selling price. Books are available in hardback, soft cover and Ebook form.
 
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 PROGRESSIVES – ELECTIONS – MOVING BACK TO THE AMERICA I LOVE
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
JUNE 14, 2021
 
 
THIS IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT A SITUATION WHICH IS NOT ONLY DEEPLY EVIL; IT IS A SIGN OF MENTAL ILLNESS ON A WIDESPREAD LEVEL. IT IS ALSO RUINOUS OF ANYTHING APPROACHING A STABLE DEMOCRACY, WHICH WE HAD BEEN PROGRESSING TOWARD OVER THE SEVENTY PLUS YEARS SINCE WORLD WAR II.
 
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW MANY CALMER AND MORE RATIONAL MINDS REMAIN IN THE POT (PARTY OF TRUMP) AT THIS TIME. WILL THEY STAND UP AS INDIVIDUALS AND STOP THE ONSLAUGHT OF ABUSE AGAINST GOOD, STEADY PUBLIC SERVANTS WHO DARED TO SPEAK TRUTH? I BELIEVE IF THEY DON’T, THE MORE LIBERALLY INCLINED DEMOCRATS WILL BECOME LESS PASSIVE AND MORE VOCAL AGAIN. REMEMBER THE VIETNAM WAR YEARS?
 
I DON’T WANT TO SEE STREET WARFARE, BUT I DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS NEWLY MINTED FASCISM CONTINUING TO RAMPAGE AROUND THE COUNTRY UNOPPOSED, EITHER. SOME GEORGIA OFFICIALS ARE DELVING INTO THE TRUMP INFLUENCE ON TODAY’S SITUATION, INCLUDING AS A POSSIBLE CASE OF RACKETEERING. QUITE A FEW PEOPLE HAVE MADE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN TRUMP’S BEHAVIOR AND THAT OF A MOB BOSS, AND SADLY, I DON’T THINK THAT IS AN INACCURATE OR UNFAIR DESCRIPTION.
 
I HOPE CRIMINAL CHARGES WILL BE EFFECTIVELY BROUGHT AGAINST THE MANY PERPETRATORS, AND THAT THEY WILL STICK, SO THAT NOT ONLY WILL SOME OF TRUMP’S PEOPLE – AND HE HIMSELF –GET SOME STIFF CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR ACTIONS; BUT ALSO, THAT OUR LAWS WILL BE ADJUSTED TO THE SOCIAL REALITY THAT WE ARE FACING IN AMERICA, IN ORDER TO MAKE THIS KIND OF ELECTION ACTIVITY LESS EASY TO ACHIEVE AND THEREFORE LESS FREQUENT IN THE FUTURE. I HAVE SOME FAITH THAT IT CAN HAPPEN THIS TIME. THE CULTURAL ATMOSPHERE FEELS DIFFERENT NOW. THERE IS POWER IN THE AIR.
 
 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-georgia-threats-special-rep/special-report-trump-inspired-death-threats-are-terrorizing-election-workers-idUSKCN2DN14M   
EVERYTHINGNEWS
JUNE 11, 2021 8:12 AM; UPDATED 2 DAYS AGO [JUNE 11, 2021]
Special Report: Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers
By Linda So
21 MIN READ
 
(Reuters) - Late on the night of April 24, the wife of Georgia’s top election official got a chilling text message: “You and your family will be killed very slowly.”
 
A week earlier, Tricia Raffensperger, wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, had received another anonymous text: “We plan for the death of you and your family every day.”
 
That followed an April 5 text warning. A family member, the texter told her, was “going to have a very unfortunate incident.”
 
Those messages, which have not been previously reported, illustrate the continuing barrage of threats and intimidation against election officials and their families months after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s November election defeat. While reports of threats against Georgia officials emerged in the heated weeks after the voting, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen election workers and top officials – and a review of disturbing texts, voicemails and emails that they and their families received – reveal the previously hidden breadth and severity of the menacing tactics.
 
Trump’s relentless false claims that the vote was “rigged” against him sparked a campaign to terrorize election officials nationwide – from senior officials such as Raffensperger to the lowest-level local election workers. The intimidation has been particularly severe in Georgia, where Raffensperger and other Republican election officials refuted Trump’s stolen-election claims. The ongoing harassment could have far-reaching implications for future elections by making the already difficult task of recruiting staff and poll workers much harder, election officials say.
 
In an exclusive interview, Tricia Raffensperger spoke publicly for the first time about the threats of violence to her family and shared the menacing text messages with Reuters.
 
The Raffenspergers – Tricia, 65, and Brad, 66 – began receiving death threats almost immediately after Trump’s surprise loss in Georgia, long a Republican bastion. Tricia Raffensperger started taking precautions. She canceled regular weekly visits in her home with two grandchildren, ages 3 and 5 – the children of her eldest son, Brenton, who died from a drug overdose in 2018.
 
“I couldn’t have them come to my house anymore,” she said. “You don’t know if these people are actually going to act on this stuff.”
 
In late November, the family went into hiding for nearly a week after intruders broke into the home of the Raffenspergers’ widowed daughter-in-law, an incident the family believed was intended to intimidate them. That evening, people who identified themselves to police as Oath Keepers – a far-right militia group that has supported Trump’s bid to overturn the election – were found outside the Raffenspergers’ home, according to Tricia Raffensperger and two sources with direct knowledge of the family’s ordeal. Neither incident has been previously reported.
 
“Brad and I didn’t feel like we could protect ourselves,” she said, explaining the decision to flee their home.
 
Brad Raffensperger told Reuters in a statement that “vitriol and threats are an unfortunate, but expected, part of public service. But my family should be left alone.”
 
Trump’s baseless voter-fraud accusations have had dark consequences for U.S. election leaders and workers, especially in contested states such as Georgia, Arizona and Michigan. Some have faced protests at their homes or been followed in their cars. Many have received death threats.
 
Some, like Raffensperger, are senior officials who publicly refused to bow to Trump’s demands to alter the election outcome. In Georgia, people went into hiding in at least three cases, including the Raffenspergers. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, told Reuters she continues to receive death threats. Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson – a Democrat who faced armed protesters outside her home in December – is also still getting threats, her spokesperson said, declining to elaborate.
 
But many others whose lives have been threatened were low- or mid-level workers, just doing their jobs. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric could reverberate into the 2022 midterm congressional elections and the 2024 presidential vote by making election workers targets of threatened or actual violence. Many election offices will lose critical employees with years or decades of experience, predicts David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research.
 
“This is deeply troubling,” Becker said.
 
Carlos Nelson, elections supervisor for Ware County in southeastern Georgia, shares that fear. “These are people who work for little or no money, 12 to 14 hours a day on Election Day,” Nelson said. “If we lose good poll workers, that’s when we’re going to lose democracy.”
 
In Georgia, Trump faces an investigation into alleged election interference, the only known criminal inquiry into his attempts to overturn the 2020 vote.
 
Trump spokesman Jason Miller did not respond to Reuters’ questions about the ongoing harassment of election workers, including why Trump has not forcefully denounced the torrent of threats being made in his name.
 
‘DISTURBING AND SICKENING’
 
The intimidation in Georgia has gone well beyond Raffensperger and his family. Election workers - from local volunteers to senior administrators - continue enduring regular harassing phone calls and emails, according to interviews with election workers and the Reuters review of texts, emails and audio files provided by Georgia officials.
 
One email, sent on Jan. 2 to officials in nearly a dozen counties, threatened to bomb polling sites: “No one at these places will be spared unless and until Trump is guaranteed to be POTUS again.” The specific text of the threat has not been previously reported. The email, a state election official said, was forwarded to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which declined to comment for this story.
 
In Georgia, threatening violence against a poll officer is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000. Making death threats is a separate crime carrying up to five years in prison and a $1,000 fine.
 
Criminal law specialists say the widespread threats could increase the legal jeopardy for Trump in the Georgia investigation. That inquiry is led by the top prosecutor in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta. District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is probing whether Trump illegally interfered with Georgia’s 2020 election.
 
RELATED COVERAGE -- Factbox: Who runs America's elections?
 
Among other matters, investigators are examining a Jan. 2 call in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his Georgia loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Willis said in a Feb. 10 letter that her office would also investigate “any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”
 
That statement suggests Willis may be examining whether Trump, or others acting with him, solicited or encouraged death threats against election officials, said Clark Cunningham, a Georgia State University law professor. Such intimidation could fit into a possible racketeering probe into Trump if the threats were part of a coordinated effort to overturn the election, said Clint Rucker, an Atlanta criminal defense attorney and former Fulton County prosecutor.
 
Since launching her inquiry in February, Willis has added several high-profile attorneys to her team, including a leading racketeering expert, to assist on cases including the Trump probe, Reuters reported on March 6.
 
“I think there’s going to be a big-picture look at all of it,” said Rucker, a Democrat, who once prosecuted a high-profile racketeering case with Willis.
 
Fulton County District Attorney spokesman Jeff DiSantis did not respond to requests for comment on the office’s inquiries into election-related threats of violence.
 
In April, two investigators from Willis’ office met with Fulton County’s elections director, Richard Barron, who oversaw elections in a region that overwhelmingly backed Biden for president. Trump frequently targeted the county, claiming without evidence that election workers there destroyed hundreds of thousands of ballots.
 
During the hour-long meeting, which has not been previously reported, investigators sought information on threats against Barron and his staff, Barron said. Barron’s office had saved every harassing message – hundreds of them – and shared them with investigators.
 
Barron said his staff is made up almost entirely of Black election workers. “The racial slurs were disturbing and sickening,” he said of the threats.
 
‘YOU DESERVE TO HANG’
 
Among those targeted was Barron’s registration chief, Ralph Jones, 56, who oversaw the county’s mail-in ballot operation and has worked on Georgia elections for more than three decades, including senior roles.
 
Jones said callers left him death threats, including one shortly after the November election who called him a “n-----” who should be shot. Another threatened to kill him by dragging his body around with a truck. “It was unbelievable: your life being threatened just because you’re doing your job,” he said.
 
Jones, born and raised in Atlanta, said he had experienced racism – but nothing like this. He recalled how one night after the election, strangers showed up at his house. They identified themselves as new neighbors, he said. Jones knew no one had moved into the neighborhood and didn’t open the door. After that, he told his wife each morning to lock the door before he went to work. “My primary focus was to make sure that no harm came to my family and staff,” he said.
 
His boss, Barron, who is white, faced even more intimidation. At a Dec. 5 rally – ahead of a runoff election in Georgia that would determine control of the U.S. Senate – Trump showed a video clip of Barron and accused him and his staff of committing a “crime,” alleging they tampered with ballots. After the rally, Barron was bombarded with threats. “I underestimated how hard he was going to push that narrative and just keep pushing it,” Barron said of Trump.
 
Between Christmas and early January, Barron received nearly 150 hateful calls, many accusing him of treason or saying he should die, according to Barron and a Reuters review of some of the phone messages.
 
“You actually deserve to hang by your goddamn, soy boy, skinny-ass neck,” said a woman in one voicemail, using a slang term for an effeminate man. Another caller wanted him banished to China: “That’s where you belong, in communist China, because you’re a crook.”
 
Police were posted outside Barron’s house and office after he received a detailed threat in late December in which the caller said he would kill Barron by firing squad.
 
“It seemed like we were descending into this third-world mentality,” said Barron, 54, who has worked in elections for 22 years and volunteered as an election observer overseas. “I never expected that out of this country.”
 
Barron’s office is bracing for more abuse during an upcoming audit of the county’s 147,000 absentee ballots cast in November. A judge on May 21 ordered the review, granting a request by plaintiffs claiming fraud in Fulton County. The details of the review are still being litigated, but it may be supervised by Barron’s office. It won’t change the results, which were certified months ago. But it reflects the lasting impact of Trump’s election falsehoods.
 
Fulton County recently sought a dismissal of the case. Trump responded in a May 28 statement with more baseless allegations of a conspiracy to steal the election, saying county officials are fighting the review “because they know the vote was corrupt
 and the audit will show it.”
 
Trump’s disinformation campaign also shook election workers in Paulding County, outside Atlanta. Deidre Holden, the county elections director, was finishing preparations ahead of Georgia’s January Senate runoffs when an email caught her eye. The subject line read: “F_UCKING HEAR THIS PAULDING COUNTY OR D!E.”
 
The message, reviewed by Reuters, threatened to blow up all of the county’s polling sites. At least 10 other counties received the same email. “We’ll make the Boston bombings look like child’s play,” the message said in an apparent reference to the 2013 extremist attack on the Boston Marathon that killed three and injured hundreds.
 
“This sh_t is rigged,” the email said. “Until Trump is guaranteed to be POTUS until 2024 like he should be, we will bring death and destruction to defend this country if needed and get our voices heard.”
 
Slideshow ( 6 images )
 
Holden forwarded the message to local police and contacted the state elections director in Raffensperger’s office. Officials at the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were also alerted. “I’ve never had to deal with anything like this,” said Holden, who’s served as elections supervisor for 14 years. “It was frightening.”
 
As Georgia girds for elections in 2022 – including votes for governor and the secretary of state – election supervisors say they fear high numbers of the temporary workers who staff polling sites won’t return for future votes because they want to avoid harassment.
 
Vanessa Montgomery, 58, is among those who may not come back. In the Jan. 5 Georgia runoffs for two U.S. Senate seats, Montgomery was a polling manager in the city of Taylorsville. The stakes were huge: Both seats were won by Democrats, giving the party control of the Senate.
 
When polls closed that night, she set off to deliver ballots to an elections office in Bartow County, a predominantly white, Republican district in northwestern Georgia. Montgomery, who is Black, was traveling with her daughter, also a poll worker hired temporarily for the election.
 
On a dark, rural two-lane road, they noticed they were being followed by an SUV.
 
“I was trying to stay calm because I wanted to make sure we both were safe,” she recalled in an interview. “What were they trying to do, actually? Were they trying to hit us and take the information and destroy the ballots?”
 
Montgomery called 911 as her daughter sped towards town with the SUV nearly running them off the road, she said. They were followed for about 25 minutes. The dispatcher helped guide them to a parking lot, where officers met and escorted them to the election office. She declined to file a police report, and the incident was not investigated.
 
She said the scare triggered a panic attack, her first since serving as a U.S. Army officer decades ago in Bosnia, where she witnessed people killed by exploding landmines. Months later, Montgomery says she still suffers panic attacks from the incident and may stop working elections altogether.
 
Her manager, Joseph Kirk, the Bartow County elections supervisor, said Montgomery is one of his most reliable poll workers. Kirk now worries that the ugly reaction to Trump’s loss will make it harder to retain and hire the staff needed to run elections smoothly across America.
 
“I’m very concerned, after what we saw last year, we’re going to lose a lot of institutional knowledge nationwide,” he said.
 
Slideshow ( 6 images )
 
THREATS OF MURDER
For Georgia’s top election officials, the intimidation has been especially personal and pointed.
 
In early May, Gabriel Sterling’s phone buzzed at 2:36 a.m. Five months had passed since the Georgia election office that he helps to lead had declared Biden the winner. The caller ranted that Sterling, the chief operating officer for Secretary of State Raffensperger, should go to prison for “rigging” the election against Trump.
 
“This stuff has continued,” said Sterling, 50, a Republican who drew national attention in December by denouncing Trump’s voter-fraud claims as false and dangerous. “It’s continued for all of us.”
 
Raffensperger’s deputy, Jordan Fuchs, says she has faced frequent death threats since November. Her personal and work cell phone numbers have been posted online by a Trump supporter who encourages people to harass her, she said. In April, she received a vulgar photo of a male body part.
 
“I don’t think any of us anticipated this level of nastiness,” said Fuchs, 31, who grew up in a conservative Christian family and has worked for years to help elect Republicans.
 
In an interview, she said the most alarming threats came in late November when Trump called Raffensperger an “enemy of the people.” Death threats started pouring in, some calling for public hangings. Some of the threats were so detailed, the FBI began monitoring a list of people who were suspected of making them, said a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
 
In mid-December, a website titled “Enemies of the People” appeared online, posting the personal information of Raffensperger, Fuchs and Sterling, including home addresses. Crosshairs were superimposed over their photos. The FBI on Dec. 23 linked the website to Iran, citing “highly credible information indicating Iranian cyber actors” were responsible for the site. A spokesperson for Iran’s mission to the United Nations called the FBI’s claim “baseless” and “politically motivated.”
 
Police parked an empty cruiser outside Sterling’s house to deter attackers, Sterling said. Fuchs said she stayed at friends’ houses as a precaution.
 
Sterling publicly rebuked Trump, pleading with the former president to stop attacking Georgia’s election process. “Someone’s going to get killed,” he said as he gripped the podium during an emotional Dec. 1 news conference.
 
A month later, five people died and more than a hundred police officers were injured when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, demanding that Congress overturn the election.
 
The threats against Raffensperger and his family began right after the election.
 
Tricia Raffensperger detailed one that came from a sender who created a phony email address using her husband’s name to make the text message appear like it came from him.
 
“I married a sickening whore. I wish you were dead,” it read. Another text called her a “bitch” and included vulgar sexual insults. Raffensperger’s family and staff viewed the messages as an effort to coerce him to resign.
 
At the time, Georgia’s two Republican U.S. senators had called on Raffensperger to step down, criticizing his management of the elections as an “embarrassment” as the vote count showed Trump narrowly trailing Biden in Georgia.
 
Raffensperger’s refusal to overturn the 2020 results has left him ostracized by fellow Republicans. As Raffensperger seeks re-election next year as secretary of state, Trump has endorsed his Republican challenger, U.S. Congressman Jody Hice, who has supported Trump’s baseless fraud claims.
 
Hice’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the threats against Georgia election officials and the reason he backs Trump’s false fraud allegations.
 
The threats worsened in late November, Tricia Raffensperger said, after unidentified people broke into the home of her daughter-in-law – the widow of the Raffenspergers’ dead son. The daughter-in-law returned home with her children to find the lights on, the garage door pulled up, and the door to the house open.
 
“Items in the house had been moved around, but nothing was taken,” said a report on the break-in from the Suwanee Police Department.
 
In response to the threats, the Georgia State Patrol assigned a security detail to the Raffenspergers. One officer was parked in their driveway. The other followed the secretary of state wherever he went.
 
Later that evening, as Brad Raffensperger left to get dinner for the family, he and his state police guard spotted three cars with out-of-state license plates in front of the family’s home in an Atlanta suburb. The officer guarding the house confronted the people and asked them to identify themselves, Tricia Raffensperger said.
 
The strangers said they were members of the Oath Keepers, the militia group. They gave the officer what the Raffenspergers considered a nonsensical reason for being there – to protect the area from Black Lives Matter protesters they had heard would be there. The officer told them to leave, Tricia Raffensperger said, which they did.
 
A Georgia State Patrol spokesperson said no formal report was generated on the incident and no arrests were made while providing security for the Raffenspergers.
 
The break-in and encounter with the far-right extremists prompted the Raffenspergers, their children and grandchildren to escape to a hotel in an undisclosed location, Tricia said. The family intended to stay away from home for more than a week, she said. They returned after four days, however, when a stranger at the hotel recognized her husband, making their effort to stay in hiding seem futile.
 
“He’s probably the only secretary of state that everybody knows,” Tricia Raffensperger said.
 
Her voice trembled as she described her continuing fears for her grandchildren and other relatives. “I hesitate to say this because I’m afraid someone might use it against me,” she said, referring to the death of her son, Brenton. “But, you know, I have lost a child, and I don’t ever want to go through that again.”
 
Reporting by Linda So; editing by Jason Szep and Brian Thevenot
 
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
 
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