Keven Robin has the understatement of the week: “It’s been a rough winter”.
Robin is the manager of the Brisson Castle Building Centre in Cochrane. Snow load on the less-than-50-year-old building caused part of the roof to collapse last week.
“The average snow on the roof based on pictures we have from previous years is an average of 16 to 18 inches,” says Robin. “This year, after the last two storms we’ve had, we’re sitting anywhere between four to eight feet on the roof and some of the areas that drifted were ten to 12 feet high.”
Robin blames an easterly wind for the drifting. He says an east wind is never good in Cochrane.
Five workers are removing the snow. He hopes that’s done by the end of the weekend. They’ll spend a couple of days tearing apart the damaged portion of the roof, followed by some demolition inside the store.
“There’s a good portion of the ceiling at the back end of the store that’s going to have to be torn out and in order to be able to further inspect the truss system at the back end,” Robin explains.
Retail operations are limited, but the business is still open.
To see an earlier story and photos, click here.