School Roof Collapses Under Snow Sandpoint School District Closes All Its Buildings For Evaluation After Auditorium Roof Buckles

Wet snow crashed through the auditorium roof at Sandpoint High School on Monday, leaving a 40-foot-wide hole.

The metal roof, insulation and twisted wooden trusses blanketed most of the auditorium’s 300 seats. District officials estimated damage at about $100,000.

“We are just thankful no one was in the building,” said district maintenance and operations director Sid Rayfield. “We are worried about all the schools right now.”

A weekend of wind and snow put 10-foot drifts on top of the 7-year-old Sandpoint High School building. The roof caved in about noon.

The district will decide later this week if the building is safe and if students can return to classes next week. Repairs could take at least three weeks.

For now, the district has closed all its buildings to teachers and the public. All scheduled sporting events and practices also have been canceled.

Sandpoint school officials aren’t the only ones dealing with heavy snow loads as a number of other buildings also were damaged when their roofs let go.

Residents across the Idaho Panhandle dug in their heels and their shovels Monday, freeing roofs and cars from the foot of snow that buried them over the weekend.

But winter hasn’t finished with the region.

Roads began to thaw, and snow turned to slush - a blessing that could turn into a curse if the sudden runoff creates massive flooding. A second storm is expected to arrive here today, bringing up to an inch of rain in parts of the Panhandle.

Brian Avery, hydrologist for the National Weather Service, said his agency has issued an urban and small stream flood advisory. The Palouse River already has flooded some rural roads around Potlatch, Idaho.

In Post Falls, a woman suffered a gash on her head when a rain gutter carrying an icy load crashed down on her. The thaw loosened snow and ice from the Firstop Smoke Shop’s roof, sending the snow and ice into the gutter. The sudden weight snapped the gutter loose and onto the customer.

Paramedics allowed her to leave on her own. The store’s owners had been battling the frozen crust.

The roof of Bass’ Western World in Coeur d’Alene completely caved in Monday. The weight of new snow caused part of the roof to collapse Sunday. The rest followed during the thaw.

“The other 50 percent of our retail floor space just caved in,” Mike Bass said Monday afternoon. “It’s completely condemned. It’s very dangerous … we’re just thrilled no one was hurt or killed.”

No one was inside the building during either collapse.

Bass was amazed at all the people who called him, offering to help salvage goods from the store. The city isn’t allowing anyone inside the building, “but it’s nice to know” people care, he said.

Mike Bass and his father Jerry Bass intend on rebuilding the store in three months or so.

“We’re going to build it bigger and better,” Bass said.

Bonner County was declared a disaster area late Monday and 50 National Guard troops will arrive today to help the school district shovel roofs. “We are going to get a lot of manpower and shovel like crazy,” Rayfield said.

Part of the roof at Priest Lake Elementary also was damaged and will cost about $72,000 to repair. Nearly every downtown business was hiring people to shovel wet snow off flat roofs, some were paying as much as $40 an hour.

At Honeysuckle Beach in Hayden Lake, Dave Logue and some friends fought to raise a Cessna 180 aircraft from the bitter-cold waters. The partially submerged floatplane sank last week because of heavy snow and pontoons that filled with water.

Plans to pull the plane free over the weekend were stopped cold by the storm. The Cessna, its tail section sticking almost straight out of the water, looked like it had fallen from the sky into a giant cement pit.

In reality, it had been tied there for the winter. Its engine had been drained of all oil beforehand so it shouldn’t pollute the lake, said Kootenai County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Soumas.

A diver attached 55-gallon drums to the plane on Monday to float it out. Logue and others towed the plane closer toward shore with a motor boat. On the dock, a friend took up the slack from a line tied to the Cessna.

“Slowly but surely,” the man said, adding that his plane was in a warm, safe hangar.

The thaw liquidated stock at Simon’s Hardware on Fourth Street, as people scrambled for shovels and deicer. Employee Lawrence Burt, on his knees and power screwdriver in hand, assembled shovels in the store.

“We went over to Spokane and got all the shovels we could,” he said, fitting a handle into a blade, piles of others covering the floor.

Brad Simon just smiled. “Oh man,” he beamed. He had sold at least 100 shovels by the early afternoon. He had 150 roof rakes on back order.

A shovel wasn’t helping Ken Andrews, his Ford Escort station wagon stuck in a snowbank. He dug and dug for about 20 minutes, his car buried up to its bumpers. Someone in a 4x4 finally came along and towed it out.

Andrews isn’t into skiing. He isn’t into the whole winter-wonderland thing, either.

“I’ve lived here too long to be into it.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Ward Sanderson Staff writer Staff writers Kevin Keating and Susan Drumheller contributed to this report.