PHOTO: Juneau officials say the roofs of at least two buildings in Juneau have failed, apparently due to heavy snow loads as of noon Tuesday. Emergency responders confirmed both buildings were vacant.
One of the buildings is along Willoughby Avenue downtown. Property records show it’s a 7,200-square-foot commercial building owned by a trust based in California.
Its roof is caved in; beams are broken. The force of the collapse sent insulation up to 50 feet away.
Fire Chief Rich Etheridge said the arched roof was built with bowstring trusses.
“They can take a lot of structural load and it’s a cheap way to span long distances, but the problem is once they fail, they fail catastrophically like you can see here where they’re like, broken in half and just kind of shattered everywhere,” Etheridge said.