Jeff Stahler for July 07, 2021

Ouch. Too soon?

Not a subject for humor!

First, you must pay off some local zoning officials, and get a variance, or two.

It’s not that simple. You have to use union labor and that costs too much and cuts into the profits of the contractor. /s

TOO SOON!

All that drug money has to go somewhere.

So, how long will it take for Republicans to start screaming about job killing regulations again?

Having lived in St. Petersburg, Florida for 35 years, I watched developers cram as many high rise condos and hotels onto slim barrier islands along the Gulf Coast as they can that 10 years earlier had just a few houses built on them. Yes, I feel sorry for the people who lost their lives and their homes in the Condo collapse, but I also think that they have to share SOME of the blame for being hoodwinked into living in a tall building built basically on sand on a chunk of land about 10 feet above sea level in an area KNOWN for Tropical Storms and Hurricanes. I have the same feelings about people who build their homes right slap in the middle of the Mississippi River Flood Plain, and then complain that they have water in the living room almost EVERY YEAR when the river floods, or the people who build on the barrier islands in the Carolinas who lose their homes whenever a Hurricane runs up the coast…and then rebuild ON THE SAME PILE OF SAND, simply because “We Love it here.” Ever consider the FACT that Nature is trying to TELL YOU SOMETHING???

Of course, having to deal with developers, owners, and Condo Associations that don’t want to spend any more then the bare minimum on proper maintenance and repairs of their buildings doesn’t help any, either.

Very bad timing. Prayers for the lost and their loved ones.

King Hammurabi of Babylon laid down laws and codes. One that i seem to remember said that if a house fell and killed its occupants, the builder was to be executed…

The best.. that man can build is no match for nature and time.

And you get to inspect the building sites and approve them all.

It appears that the design of Champlain Tower was defective from the start and that was compounded by lack of maintenance and avoidance of city inspections.

The foolish man built his house on the sand. When the rain came and the floods built up, the winds blew and beat on his house, the storms made the house on the sand fall down. And great was the fall of it. Matthew 7:27

What could possibly go wrong?

A they used to say in Florida . . . No Law south of Lauderdale; No brains North of Okeechobee. Now it’s same all over – for both.

Insensitive.

Some Florida pigs made out.

“You can get a house in Florida, you can even get stucco, boy did I get stuck oh…” Groucho Marx.

And he’ll get rich doing it.

if this idiotic bi-partisan infrastructure deal goes through we can expect lots of poor quality roads and bridges by this kind of crew

Not only is a large fraction of South Florida built on swamp, but the underlying base material is water soluble – which is why they get sinkholes that will swallow you and your house.

And with sea level rise, the salt enters that water soluble base, it pushes the lighter fresh water (what little is left) up for more flooding, especially for poorly built basements…

What gets me is this, they knew in 2018 the condition of this condo, but did NOTHING! Then the INEVITABLE HAPPENS! It’s to bad that it takes a TRAGEDY to WAKE ‘EM UP and OFF THEIR A$$! This happens OVER, and OVER AGAIN! Now everybody is on the INSPECTION BANDWAGON up and down the eastern seaboard. AS THEY SHOULD! My question is this? If that condo hadn’t collapsed, would they be on this bandwagon? NO! Procrastinating KILLS! It seems to me that these officials have each others back, from the governor on down. Looking for a scapegoat. Having formed a circle BACK TO BACK, they defend their INCOMPETENCE! But their INCOMPETENCE and PROCRASTINATION led to the LOSS OF LIFE! And in the center of that circle lies the RUBBLED GRAVES of LIVES LOST!

Umm …

Too late. There is hardly anywhere left on the Florida Coast that doesn’t already have a bunch.

I’m waiting for a similar thing to happen on the Gold Coast of Queensland where so many multi storey buildings now block out the sun from the beach, mid afternoon and rising seas wash away the sand they are built on.