The combination of a traffic accident and the weight of ice and snow caused the collapse of the Carthage Route 66 Antique Mall at 1221 Oak St. in Carthage, Mo., earlier this week.
The Joplin (Mo.) Globe reported:
The incident began when a car ran into the building and one of the supporting trusses on the structure failed, according to fire Capt. Tom Nixon.
“It was a combination of the accident and all the weight on the roof,” Nixon said. “The roof came in on the north end of the building, sheared off a gas line to a ceiling furnace and filled the building up with gas.”
At the time of the incident, the only occupant was the owner of the building. Fire crews aired out the building, which will have to stay vacant until repairs are completed, Nixon said.
A photo of the damaged building can be seen here.
Route 66 TV Online had more details about the accident:
The Carthage Route 66 Antique Store and Flea Market suffered major damage tuesday morning when a southbound Hummer, driven by Lim Young, 59, lost control on ice and skidded into the northwest corner of the former auto dealership. With a major structural support gone, the roof collapsed under the weight of ice & snow and a gas line was severed, according to Fire Capt.Tom Nixon. The owner of the building was inside at the time, and neither he nor the driver of the Hummer were injured.
Does it surprise anyone that a Hummer driver lost control of the vehicle?
UPDATE: Here’s a photo from the Carthage Press, before the building started to collapse.
Doesn’t surprise me. They ought to require SUV drivers (and 4WD pickup drivers) to get a special license, and to get the license, they should have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the concept that four-wheel drive does NOT make your car impervious to ice. It’s nice for getting out of the driveway on a snowy morning, but it’s not going to keep you from sliding when you hit an icy patch.
Some ol’ boy on U.S. 75 learned that the hard way the other day. We had so much ice and snow that you couldn’t even see the road, and the snow was blowing so that you couldn’t see much of anything else, either. I was doing about 30, which in all truth was probably 15 mph faster than I should have been going, and this guy came flying around me because I wasn’t going fast enough for him. I passed him about half a mile later as he was trying to figure out how to get his truck out of a ditch after it went off the road and turned around completely backward. I’d have stopped to help push him out if I could have figured out how to do it safely, but there wasn’t a safe place to park.
What was a Hummer (a Hummer?!?) doing on narrow city streets? They ought to be banned.