snow roof collapse 3/24/01

Building collapses in Ossipee under heavy snowShovel your roof, before it's too lateLloyd JonesA vacant 50-by-100 foot building in Center Ossipee collapsed yesterday under the weight of the heavy, wet snow that fell the day before. Wal-Mart in Gorham never opened yesterday because employees heard the building "creaking" from the storm. Earlier in the week, a wall in North Conway Village Congregational Church cracked from heavy snow. "It can happen to anyone," warns Center Ossipee Fire Chief Roland Stockbridge. "All you have to do is turn on the television and you see buildings collapsing in Nashua, Manchester, Tilton and Exeter and around here. People need to heed this warning or else there are going to be an awful lot more cave-ins in the next two to three weeks. This is the type of winter where you need to shovel your roof not just once, but two or three times because we've gotten so much snow and with the threat of rain it's only going to get worse."Stockbridge and his department have been trying to get the word out to the community since March 2. During that week they sent out 800 faxes and letters to property owners alerting them of the risks. "We sent letters everywhere to the Governor Wentworth School District, the principal at Kingswood Regional High School you name it and they probably got a letter from us. I know we sent letters to at least 10 different schools... I've been pushing for years the importance of taking care of your roof every winter, but people tend to wait until it's too late like it was this (Friday) morning."Stockbridge is referring to the former Hall oil building, owned by Charlie Smith in Center Ossipee. "It went in at 5:30 a.m.," he said. "There was just too much snow and ice for the building to hold it. You can go and look at the twisted steel. If the person had spent $500 to have it shoveled they would have saved a $100,000 building... If you holler wolf, everyone says the wolf ain't coming he's just growling. This isn't just a wolf growling, he's coming and a lot of people are going to be bitten if they don't do something immediately."Bartlett Fire Chief Roger Labbe echoes Stockbridge's sentiments. "I'm not aware of anything happening here, yet," he said. "At this time though, it would be my recommendation to shovel your roof if you haven't already. This last storm is wet and extremely heavy so the potential is there for some problems, especially with flat or relatively flat roofs... If you have any doubts either shovel or get someone to shovel it. We don't want elderly people out on the roof shoveling because this stuff is heavy and the last thing we want is people suffering medical problems from it."Center Ossipee Fire Department has distributed more than 500 flyers in area stores explaining the weight of snow. One cubic foot of snow weighs 20 pounds (if dry less, if wet more). One cubic foot of ice or one cubic foot of water on a roof weighs 62.4 pounds. For instance, four feet of snow weighs 80 pounds; three inches of ice weighs 15.6 pounds; 1 inch of rain weighs 5.2 pounds and when you combine the three you get 100.8 pounds of weight on a roof. Stockbridge said new roofs are generally built for a load of 60 pounds per square foot. "What this example shows," he said, "is this roof is 40.8 pounds over the roof's capacity which means it's dangerously overloaded." "Right now," Stockbridge continued, "we're talking about houses and buildings with four feet of snow on them and another foot of ice which adds up to 144.2 pounds or more than twice the desired amount plus 24 pounds. It's a dangerous situation... I've got firemen who are out there shoveling roofs up to their armpits in snow. Three feet is bad; four feet is worse; and five feet is tragic."Stockbridge said people don't seem to be getting his message. "You know what we see," he said, "people in society would rather see the bleeding person in a car than read an article about how to prevent it... If we don't try to get the word out then it'll happen again. This is just like the boy with the cavity. We take a picture of the boy's tooth being pulled, but we never say brush your teeth until it's too late."Here's some advice. "I don't care who you are; what your name is, but shovel your damn roof," Stockbridge said. "Today, I'm telling you so. This snow is going to be around for two or three more weeks and that means the problem is going to be here too. You're just playing Russian roulette if you don't do something."