Roof collapses due to the weight of the back-to-back-to-back-to-back snow storms have picked up in recent days.
There is no exact science to whether you should clear your roof.
“The fact of the matter is, you can’t simply look at a roof and determine whether it is susceptible to collapse. It’s way more complicated than that and often involves consulting a structural engineer,” writes Rob Robillard, general contractor, in The Boston Globe. “The critical factor in determining whether you have an excessive snow load on your roof isn’t the depth of the snow; it’s the weight of that particular snow on your particular roof,” he said in the piece , which has some useful tips and advice. Here’s but a small sample of the regional roof collapse mayhem:
Stoughton Barn Collapse
Nearly three dozen horses were rescued by volunteers responding to the social media alert of Stoughton barn rood collapse.
33 horses in need of trailers after Stoughton horse barn collapses.#DryWaterFarm#wcvb pic.twitter.com/e5C429RJfW
— Jorge Quiroga (@JorgeWCVB) February 15, 2015
The owners told WHDH/Boston NBC that they cleared the roof Saturday but the the new snowfall was too much. Sunday afternoon it gave way. A social media alert asking for help to rescue 33 horses got more than 9,000 responses. “People brought trailers to the scene to help rescue the terrified horses, who had to remain inside the damaged barn because of the cold temperatures,” NBC reported.
Portsmouth, NH Patriots Park It’ll take at least a week before the more than 200 families kcan return to their Patriots Park home.
“Everyone’s frustrated,” Rakshid Jain told WMUR9, the ABC affiliate . “It’s out of our hands, right? We can’t do anything.” Multiple Quincy reports Seven people were evacuated from 79-85 Gilbert St. as major pieces of the multi-family building’s trim and gutter crashed to the ground.
In Portsmouth, NH, more than 600 people were evacuated from an apartment complex off Lafayette Road after two of its eight buildings suffered partial roof collapses that cops attributed to the snow.
Multiple reports of roof cave-ins are coming in from Quincy.
Removing debris from 108 Garfield in #Quincy. Whole bldg had to be torn down after roof collapse #fox25 pic.twitter.com/yDe2g7YnJZ
— Jessica Reyes (@jessicamreyes) February 16, 2015
“This is a nightmare,” Jessica Linehan, 37, told The Hingham Journal . “I can’t even take that much with me because I don’t know where I’m going… All I’m taking is my pocketbook and clothes for the night.” A building at 108 Garfield is being torn down after it suffered major structural damage.
Newburyport apartment complex “It’s very scary,” said Mary Johnson told local NBC . “I’m on the board and it’s scary. I have friends in this building and they had to evacuate and we were running around all morning getting people out of here.” Seabrook stip mall Hilde’s and the pub are okay, but several smaller busineses between them, including Carpet Liquidators, are “compromised,” a fire official told seacoastonline.com . Deputy fire chief Lawrence “Koko” Perkins said the roof collapses highlighted other possible cave-ins and ordered that any business with two feet of snow or more on the roof must have it professionally removed.
Twenty-four families in three buildings were evacuated from a Newburyport port complex when the roof of one of the buildings gave way.
A Lafayette Road strip mall that’s home to the Chop Shop Pub and Hilde’s Lumber Outlet saw three roof collapses., a fire official said.
