Heavy snow has caused the cave-in of the roof of an Osage manufacturing plant. Fox River Mills co-owner Jeff Lessard says the collapse impacted the sock manufacturer’s shipping and storage departments.
Employees coming to work this morning noticing the roof sagging and they cleared everyone out. They saw the roof move again and then shut off the sprinkler system and electricity. Lessard thinks a lot of snow was blown around overnight and built up on the roof, and that caused it to eventually collapse.
He says the roof caved in right around 9 o’clock this morning as rivets started popping and dropping. He says a 40-by-100 foot piece of the roof dropped at around that time. Lessard says luckily nobody was hurt since they evacuated the area.
Lessard says if nobody had noticed the roof when coming into work this morning, it’s possible someone could have been hurt since it’s an area people do go through. Lessard says production was stopped temporarily, but things are back to normal. He says they brought everybody to the east side of the building to make sure everybody was safe, and now the plan is to seal off the impacted area so they can open up shipping once again.
By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City