Community Chat

[Anonymous032819]

Actually, @Mindy D  Florida is the lightning capital of the United States, not the world.

The lightning capital of the world is in Central Africa.

A simple Google search will show you that.

[Mindy D]

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@Carolina925 wrote:

Such a sad tragedy. You are supposed to feel safe in your own home. I live in an area that has a high ground water level so am surprised that this doesn't happen more often. I wonder if inspections on building stability are done. This is so scary and so very sad.

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@Carolina925 @The building was just finishing 40 year inspections and was open to bids from contractors to do work on the building. There was an open bidding meeting for contractors on June 15th. The local news, Channel 6, posted the actual paperwork about the work the contractors were bidding on. Work was expected to be well over 1 million dollars. The engineer that inspected and passed the building was not made aware of the study done by FIU which showed the building sinking. The engineer did not find any out of the ordinary signs of anything about the structure to warrant any idea of collapse. He was interviewed by our local news. He said the building was in the condition expected for similar buildings of that age and type. I think that if he had any idea of the findings from the FIU study there might have been something more he could have found. The study from FIU found no other building in the area with the same issue of sinking. None of the other condos have this issue. The FIU study, instead, found sinking in certain areas west of the beaches. The study was looking at the impact of flooding using satellite images from 1993. I posted acess to the study here in this thread. There are photographs of some places examined by the researchers. After reading, and rereading the study, I still cannot find the single sentence in it that is supposed to reference a 12 story condo. I wonder what might have happened had the authors alerted anyone about their findings. The study was published last year. 

[Mindy D]

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@Anonymous032819 wrote:

Actually, @Mindy D  Florida is the lightning capital of the United States, not the world.

The lightning capital of the world is in Central Africa.

A simple Google search will show you that.

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@Anonymous032819 @Yes, Rawanda and central Africa have more strikes, however, the moniker has been just a bit of Florida lore for years. It's just what Florida has been known as. We're not even the capital of The U.S., since we are running neck and neck with Oaklahoma. With climate change we will probably be seeing more and more shifts in which places hold this title. Lake Maricabo has the most strikes according to a study by NASA in 2016. BTW, we are having a ton of strikes and loud thunder claps directly above me as I type this. 

[Lucky Dog]

@Mindy D : I'm listening to talk radio and a Florida caller just said "We're the lightning capital of the world!"

[elated]

The news is stating 4 dead and 159 missing. This is a tragedy. No answer to why this occurred.

[agb80]

The building should have been condemned years ago.  I'm sure the owner right now is shredding any incriminating documents that pointed to the defects and consequences of not evacuating or condemning the building. Greed obviously kept him or her from doing so.

[lovesrecess]

The news is reporting now that the building had been slowly sinking about an inch or so per year for several years. As far as age, many more buildings along the coast in that area are much older and have had no issues. If they knew it was sinking, why was it allowed to keep its occupancy permit rather than being condemned? I pray for a miracle and some survivors are found.

[gertrudecloset]

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@Mindy D wrote:

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@gertrudecloset wrote:

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@Mindy D wrote:

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@ROMARY wrote:

Was there a rumor re: a lightning strike?

All I know is, that around here, lightning and thunder almost always shakes the ground, houses.  

Deep vibrations, I guess from the sound of the thunder, etc.

Wishing and hoping for complete rescue and safety for all, including responders/rescue workers, and including the K9's.

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@ROMARY @I don't know if lightning hit the building or not, but we had the worst lightning Ive ever seen here last night and we are the lightning capital of the world. It is possible that the building was hit. If lightning had anything to do with this the fire department and engineers will know. There were many strikes around my house last night. I had to unplug everything. All the car alarms were going off. I'm north of Surfside but was tracking the storm on radar. They had lightning. We have lightning strikes without rain sometimes too.

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Not hanging out where you live.  I'm extremely afraid of lightning.  When we get a bad storm I go hide in the basement because there are no windows there.  There are dozens of windows in my home and I don't wanna see no ligthning.

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@gertrudecloset @My former home was hit, right outside and it fried my AC compressor. My current home was hit, just out front, and it took down two exceptionally tall Washingtonian palms and nearly hit my husband who went out front to see the storm for a second. My dad's home was hit in his giant oak tree, which had branches right next to his roof. If you are afraid of lightning, don't move to Florida. The home behind my home was hit in its roof while I was peering out my sliding glass door watching a storm. They didn't appear to have any damage. We are considered the lightning capital of the world, however, in recent years we have been running neck and neck with Oaklahoma. I love sleeping during thunderstorms. The sounds relax my mind. I even listen to thunderstorm sound on podcasts and YouTube to help me sleep.

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@Mindy D I'm not hanging out with YOU as long as you live where lightning is that severe. You sure have gone through a lot with lightning.  How do you manage?  I'm the only one in my family who is this afraid of it though.

I live in the Northeast, and we get some doozies once in a while and they scare me.  Imagine if I were in the lightning capital of the world?  No way.  No, not doing it.

I was taught to: turn off lights, unplug everything, be quiet when we had "electric storms."  My aunties in Virginia and NC called them that.  Heaven forbid you talk on the phone.  

My daughter may call me when it's storming and I don't have a land line.  I won't even talk to her on my cell phone when it's thundering and lightening.  No way.

[gertrudecloset]

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@Anonymous032819 wrote:

Actually, @Mindy D  Florida is the lightning capital of the United States, not the world.

The lightning capital of the world is in Central Africa.

A simple Google search will show you that.

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Thanks for sharing that bit of information too @Anonymous032819 .  None of these places need me!  LOL.....

[Grand Happy]

Not going to guess, assume what happened. It's horrible and sad beyond belief.
Praying they find survivors, for the families of the ones they'll never be with again and all the rescue team, I've heard they don't want to leave to get any sleep they just want to keep looking for survivors God bless them all 🙏