Investigation reveals severe design flaws in Surfside condo pool deck.

Design flaws in the pool deck of the Surfside, Florida, apartment building where a partial collapse killed 98 people put the building at risk of failure before it was even built, federal investigators said. Poor construction of the deck in 1981 further weakened Champlain Towers South, and over the next four decades, corrosion, along with renovations that placed a heavier load than the deck was designed to hold, made the building even more vulnerable. Investigators consider the pool deck’s many defects as a leading hypothesis of what led a large section of the 12-story residential building to suddenly crumple in the middle of the night.