NIST Lab Work on Surfside Collapse Shifts to Policy—Building Code Updates Expected

NIST has finished analyzing evidence from the Champlain Towers South collapse that killed 98 people in June 2021. Researchers pinpointed the failure: garage column connections broke first. Now comes the harder phase—translating those findings into code recommendations that states and counties will use to set condo inspection standards. NIST's role is to provide the impartial technical baseline engineers and regulators need.