Condemnation or the Wrath of the Gulf of Mexico

The 2008 Category 2 Hurricane Ike event caused significant damage to appurtenance structures of three condominiums that lie approximately 2.5 mi to the southwest of the SW end of the infamous Galveston, Texas, seawall. This hurricane washed away the adjoining decks and swimming pools, undermined the shallow foundation, scoured away soils, and exposed the deep-piled foundations. The 2020 Category 4 Hurricanes Laura and Delta, which struck southwest Louisiana, caused further and accelerated the erosion of the beach fronting the condominiums and undermined the shallow foundations underneath the condominiums, exposing more of the deep-piled foundations. The 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South at Surfside, Florida, was the catalyst for the city of Galveston to address the conditions at these three condominiums. The homeowners associations for the condominiums hired one civil/structural engineer to assess the conditions. He deemed them unsafe per the 2018 International Existing Building Code. The city of Galveston moved to condemn them. Due to his lack of experience with ocean and coastal engineering, the HOAs retained Mark E. Haas, P.E., with greater than 30 years of coastal, offshore, and subsea engineering experience, to assess the condominiums. Mr. Haas, P.E., implemented a LiDAR assessment of the condominiums and showed that the deflections of the condominiums were well within the tolerances for construction and for operability per the appropriate governing codes. With these results, the city of Galveston delayed its condemnation orders to allow time for the construction of a fronting bulkhead and a thorough engineering analysis of the buildings. The construction of the bulkhead would be on the property of the state of Texas. Many structural and other engineered drawings for the three condominiums were lost due to the flooding of the offices during the 2008 Hurricane Ike event. With existing and re-created IFC structural drawings, the condominiums were re-analyzed for Dead, Live, and Wind Loads per ASCE 7-16 and analyzed for Dead, Live, Wind, Flooding, and Wave Loads, also per ASCE 7-16. Currently, two condominiums have been deemed safe per 2018 IEBC standards. The third condominium may yet face condemnation by the city of Galveston, as its final engineering review has not started at the time of the submission of this paper. The final review should be concluded before the November 2023 presentation at the 2023 ASCE Inspire Conference.