A young autoworker is counting his blessings this weekend after narrowly dodging a collapsing roof.
Police, fire and ambulance surrounded the Carstar St. Albert building at the corner of Riel Drive and Sir Winston Churchill Avenue Friday afternoon after the roof of its centre bay collapsed, starting a small fire.
First-year autobody technician Jean-Paul Jacques was one of four employees in the bay at the time. He said he was just about to take the bumper off a white Grand Prix when he heard a little bang and some cracking. “I looked up and saw a bunch of dust.” When he heard more cracks and bangs, he ducked towards the bay doors.
The roof fell in seconds later, said co-worker David Forbes, missing Jacques by about two feet. “It was really close. He could have got pinned on the front of the car.”
Jacques said he didn’t realize how close the debris was at the time. “All I could see was dust.”
Snow and water rained down from the ruined ceiling. “I was drenched.” Electrical wires threw blue sparks from one corner of the roof.
He, Forbes and the other two men all ran into an adjacent bay and out of the building. “I spat black when I got out,” he said, on account of the dust. None of them were injured.
Owner Chris Lane, who was in the bay at the time, said he called the fire department once he was sure everyone was OK. “I just heard a bunch of cracking and then a big boom.”
He and his crew then started moving cars out of the unaffected bays. Police stopped traffic around the building for several hours as 15 firefighters did their job.
Fire crews saw a collapsed roof with a small fire in it when they arrived, said Capt. Paul Starke. “It’s been a tough little fire,” he said. Despite being confined to one corner of the roof, it took about two hours to extinguish.
The roof had collapsed in a lean-to fashion, Starke explained, with part of the roof’s membrane still intact directly over the fire. Crews cut a triangular hole in the bay door to get at it from below, but were blocked by debris. They eventually called in their ladder truck to spray it from above, punching holes in the roof with pikes to let the water in.
Crews had not determined the cause of the fire as of press time or the extent of the damage. Five cars were in the bay when it collapsed, Jacques said.
Lane said this was the first problem they’ve had with the 40-year-old building since they moved into it four years ago. Heavy snow might have caused the collapse, he said, adding they had cleared the roof of snow back in January.
Winter snow and spring melt put a lot of weight on flat roofs and can cause them to collapse, Starke said. “If people think there’s an issue … they should hire a company and get the snow removed.”
