Two buildings collapsed in Alaska during the weekend

The roofs of two commercial buildings collapsed during the weekend in the town of Anchorage, Alaska.

The first event took place around 7.30 a.m. on Saturday, where the roof of a thrift store near downtown collapsed and caused instability to the outer walls of the building.

The second event occurred around 12.20 a.m. on Sunday and involved the roof collapse of another commercial building.

It is worth mentioning that these events do not stand alone, as a carport in an apartment complex collapsed last week. In addition to this, Palmer’s community library and a local CrossFit gym’s roofs collapsed earlier this winter, with the last one leaving one dead.

In most cases, the collapsed elements were flat roofs of commercial buildings constructed during the 1970’s and 1980’s and loaded with snow and ice.

Ross Noffsinger, an Engineering Services Manager with the Municipality of Anchorage, noted that in the case of the CrossFit gym the suspected design flaw had to do with a top chord hung roof truss. More specifically, the suspected failure might have been due to split wood in truss-wall connections.

Investigators are still determining the exact reasons which led to failure.