Michael McDonald could hardly believe his eyes when he showed up to his Home Hardware store in Brussels, Ont. Sunday night.
“I got an alarm call Sunday around 5:30 p.m., all the alarms started to go off. So, we come up to check it out and, noticed that the front of the building was tipped forward. So, upon going inside, there was quite a snowbank on the inside of the building. And, yeah. It’s a really unfortunate thing, but we are just happy that it was during non-business hours and no one was in the building,” said McDonald.
McDonald believes the cause of the partial roof collapse was excessive snow load on the roof. Brussels, like most Midwestern Ontario communities, has seen upwards of 50-60 centimetres of snow in the past two weeks, on top of another 50-60 centimetres during January.
McDonald said the rest of the structure is okay, and McDonald’s Home Hardware is still open for business.
The part of the building that collapsed, which is where the cash registers were, will have to be torn down, but McDonald said he plans to rebuild as soon as possible.
He’s just thankful no one was hurt and the roof collapse happened on the one day of the week his store isn’t open to the public.
