Trump highrise condos in Florida among 35 buildings sinking into the ground at alarming rates

[Mike 03]

4. Not surprising but fascinating

It begs the question of how one repairs a high rise building that is sinking, but not uniformly. Would people have to move out? Is it costlier to repair or condemn the building and write the whole thing off in taxes?

Cracks in walls, utilities that are breaking, or doors and windows that don’t shut as easily as they used to are all signs of differential subsidence, said Gangarao Hota, a professor of civil engineering and the director of the constructor facilities center at West Virginia University.

“In some extreme scenarios, the buildings at some point sink much more dramatically with time,” he said. If that subsidence is differential, “then it is very, very serious,” Hota said.