More roof collapses over the weekend

There have been four more roof collapses in Revelstoke since last week, including a collapse over the rear bay at the bottle depot. David F. Rooney photo

By David F. Rooney

There were four more roof collapses over the weekend, including collapses at Downie Street Sawmill and the bottle depot.

While workers at Downie cleaned up a shed collapse, Tony Scarcella and Lawrence Davis surveyed the damage at the depot.

“Lucky it was just over the last bay,” Scarcella said as he and Davis surveyed the damage.

Inside the all-metal structure, which was built in the late 1970s, the roof bowed close to the ground. Fortunately the bay was used only for storage and was, Davis said, “separated from the next bay by a shear wall.” As a result, the depot will continue to operate as normal.

Downie Street Sawmill continued normal operations, too, after a shed collapsed under its snow load.

Elsewhere in the city, the home City Planner John Guenther rents on Townley Street experienced a relatively minor collapse when the snow brought down the roof that shaded a garage-top deck. And there was said to be a collapsed carport in Arrow Heights.

The last two days of fine weather may make it seem like spring, but more snow is entirely possible.

With a record amount of snow (173 cm as measured last week by volunteer weather data collector Lisa Longinotto) on the ground — and on city roofs — many homeowners began clearing snow from their roofs.

Here are a few photos taken earlier today:

The bottle depot collapse occurred sometime Sunday night but will not hamper operations at the facility. The bay where the collapse occurred apparently did not contain anything critical to the bottle depot's operations. David F. Rooney photo
This home on Townley, rented by City Planning Director John Guenther experienced a collapse, as well. The snow on top of a roof that overhung a garage-top deck collapsed on the weekend. Bob Okumura, shown here at work on Guenther's roof for Peter Bernacki's Nu Trend Construction, said that besides a collapsed shed at Downie there was also a carport collapse in Arrow Heights. David F. Rooney photo
Over the weekend dozens of homeowners climbed onto their roofs to clear snow and here at Okanagan College on Monday a work party began clearing snow from its vast expanse of roof. David F. Rooney photo