Hundreds of residents of a Miami condo building were ordered to evacuate by Tuesday morning after city officials deemed the building unsafe, according to reports.
Residents began removing their belongings Monday night from the 138-unit building at 5050 NW Seventh St.in Flagami, a district on the western edge of the city,the Miami Herald reported.
“We obviously don’t feel that it’s safe,” Asael Marrero, building director for the city of Miami, told NBC Miami. “Structural integrity has been degraded by the contractor proceeding with the repairs that they were not authorized to do.”
The Seventh Street building was placed on a list of unsafe structures in May; failed to obtain its 40-year recertification as safe to occupy; and was scheduled for a hearing at the “City’s Unsafe Structures Panel” on Aug. 20, according to NBC Miami.
The evacuation comes weeks after 98 people died in the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in nearby Surfside. Since that June 24 collapse, officials in South Florida and across the state launched safety inspections of older high-rises. Several South Florida buildings, including the Crestview Towers Condominium, have been evacuated because of structural concerns.
More:Surfside collapse could spur national rise in insurance-related costs for multi-family buildings
City building officials told the Herald that they met July 26 with residents concerned about the building’s condition. Officials determined upon inspection that the detached elevated garage had to be closed because of structural concerns and that damaged columns on the first floor of the main building “required emergency shoring.”
The property manager was told to immediately submit a plan to fix the problem, but never did, the Herald reported.
Last week, the city received a letter from an engineer saying the building was safe to occupy during the emergency repair work, the Herald reported. The next day, officials saw work being done without a permit, issued a stop work order, and decided to vacate the building after finding the columns were “structurally insufficient.”
The city is working with residents to find temporary housing, according to the Herald.
“We don’t know where we are going to go,” Dairon Deramico told WFOR-TV. “The city is saying they are going to give us a place, maybe for a couple of weeks or a few days. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
City officials and the building’s condominium association did not immediately respond to a USA TODAY request for comment Tuesday.
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Contributing: The Associated Press
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