Searching For Answers: Experts To Look At Growing Pile Of Collected Debris From Collapsed Surfside Condo

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Over 3 million pounds of debris have already been removed from the site of the Surfside condo collapse.

That growing pile of recovered condo debris will be scrutinized by experts looking for evidence that might shed light on what might have caused the tragedy.

The mountain of ebris sits off the Golden Glades Interchange. It has steadily grown as truck after truck carts it from the site of the Surfside condo collapse.

It is massive, cumbersome, but it is evidence.

"There is not going to be a silver bullet that is the cause of it," said Dr. Atorod Azizinamini, professor at FIU's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

What the pile will yield is the composition of the building materials, data which will be fed into computers that replicate the stresses on the building.

"You can take it in the computer all the way to collapse. In order to do that you need the actual properties. All the way from where you take the steel and stretch it all the way till it ruptures," added Azizinamini.

The debris dump is highly visible, but there is another site. A warehouse at an undisclosed location for selected debris.

The catastrophe at the Champlain South Condo is already generating lawsuits, local, state, and federal investigations and the piles of rubble will play a role.

"Everybody has the right to see the evidence," said Allyn Kilsheimer, president of KCE Structural Engineers.

"That's why they are going with trucks with a chain of custody forms, police escorts. They put it into a secure area that is controlled," added Kilsheimer.

Miami Dade police detectives are cataloging the debris. The samples in the rubble, combined with sophisticated computer programs might come close to determining the complex scenario of possible structural failure.

"The samples they collect are going to be extremely useful and are going to get us 90% to know exactly what happened," said Azizinamini.

Hired by the City of Surfside, Kilsheimer worked on the 9/11 terrorist attack and the FIU bridge collapse. He says every causation option is possible and in those piles.

"You never know. It is possible somewhere in there there will be something, 'Gee, I can't believe. No wonder this happened,' that's possible," added Kilsheimer.

So, in those mountains of rubble there just might be a clue that helps determine what brought down that Surfside condo.