Well sh!t

Buffy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Location
Burlington, NC
Got a call this evening telling me there were issues at the warehouse my shop is in. Apparently there was such a down pour that is caused a 100’ x 100’ section of the roof to collapse. This in turn dumped about 100,000 gallons of water inside the building. The resulting 6 foot title wave ripped some of the other units roll up doors apart like paper. When I got on scene they were shutting off the gas is it was split. Once the gas was off
We could check our units, when I left today I left some extension cords in the floor and plugged up. I opened my door to find standing water and decided a big old nope, not going in. Soon after I was informed the build was being condemned until further notice and had until 9:00 pm to get anything out. So needless to say all my stuff is still in my shop and no telling when I will be able to get back in. What a night....
 
Good grief that had to have been an insane downpour. Even at a ridiculous rate per hour, how could the gutters not get the water gone? And how could there have been 100,000gal of water up there? That is the equivalent of 4 inches of rain over an entire acre. I hope your stuff was spared! What an unusual and unfortunate circumstance.
 
awheelterd said:
Even at a ridiculous rate per hour, how could the gutters not get the water gone? And how could there have been 100,000gal of water up there?
Click to expand...

Folks never cleaning out the scuppers, if it was a parapet type roof.

Had a small building here collapse several years ago. Appx 5k sqft brick/CMU building, had flat roof with 24" parapets all around. Scuppers were clogged. I'd heard they found it just before it collapsed, water was overflowing the tops of the walls, so 5k sqfeet at 2' deep = 1,500 gallons, or 12,000#. Building has a gabled roof now.
 
I worked in a condemned building the city owned a few years back, a couple long weeks of rain and suddenly you could hear more water than normal inside the building. Same ordeal, all the down spouts were clogged, roof finally gave way tearing out the back half of the building.
I called the city, took them 2 days to send anyone, all the while the sprinkler pipes that are unregulated and tied directly into the supply flooded the basement/catacombs of the whole building.
I didn't realize until just now how lucky I am I wasn't where the roof gave out, hope you can find the same silver lining in your story.
 
I hadn’t been gone more than an hour before the storm hit. Heck of it is the roof was replaced about 5 years ago and nothing really around the building to clog the spouts. They say that an insane amount of water came down in a very short time. One of those micro bursts of you will. I saw pictures of where the roof collapsed and the main steel beam was split into! And the damage the water did when it came in the building. It looked like those 12x12 doors were in an explosion. The police officer on scene told me there was still a flow of water a foot high shooting out of one of the units when he arrived.
 
Man, that really sucks.

Where did this happen? It hasn't rained at my house in weeks.
 
It happened last night at around 5:30 it think. My shop is in Gibsonville. Just one of those isolated intense storms. It was a crazy night! So much for going to bed early. LOL which is where we were headed when my phone rang.
 
So what's the insurance situation? Presumably the owner will cover the building costs but if it was just bad luck, nothing that can be pointed at the owner for, then all your stuff would fall back on you and any insurance you have etc.
I can't imagine dealing w/ this, sorry bud.
 
We talked with the building owner today. Insurance is coming out tomorrow to assess the situation. He has a steel company coming by Tuesday to see about replacing the main beam that broke. Sure wish I had a picture of that to share but we were told EXACTLY where to stand! Overall I am hopeful we can get back to work. I was just staring to makes some good progress on my NPR project.
 
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