NY Times on Middletown Roof Collapse

“‘Bad as it may be, I love y’all’s snowfall,’ he said, mostly in jest.”

“The woods may be lovely, dark and deep, but for small New England towns like this one, snow no longer brings the peaceful sweep of easy wind and downy flake.”

It sounds like the opening narration of a bad M. Night Shyamalan film. Actually, it’s the lead sentence of an article in yesterday’s New York Times, which deals with the familiar enough Snow vs. Roof drama taking place across New England this season. The focus is on recent structural collapse concerns in Middletown, particularly that time a building on Main Street collapsed under the weight of snow.

The article provides an interesting glimpse at the Main Street businesses affected in the aftermath of last week’s frightening collapse:

Mitchell Wynn, 49, who owns Mike’s Barber Shop, was able to salvage his antique chairs and his marble work station and has found another shop a few blocks away. For now, his two sons are carrying on the business, with one cutting hair at his home and the other making house calls.

“I’ve got to keep going forward, I’ve got to think positive, I’ve got to think something better is going to come,” said Mr. Wynn, who is also a preacher, as he stood in his overalls peering at the rubble. “I am choosing not to have a bad day.”

Dmitri D’Alessandro, 33, who owns Middletown Framing, is relocating across the street to a former jewelry store. He believes that the relentless winter and the many roof cave-ins are evidence of global warming and that he is paying the price.

“We’re on the brink,” he said. “This could destroy our business. As a family, it’s been very stressful for us, and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. And that uncertainty is unnerving. It’s just an awful feeling.”

Read the whole article here, and find detailed Middletown Eye coverage of the building collapse here and here and here and here. Frighteningly enough, city officials are concluding that Main Street buildings may still be threatened.

Here’s one first person account of the collapse, from the Eye:

I felt the collapse of 505 Main Street from my dining room. I went to the window, expecting to see one of the frequent car accidents on Washington Street. The street was empty, but soon there were sirens and I popped my head out the door as fire trucks blocked the intersection of Main Street, and neighbors started to gather. A few minutes later, my husband called to say that Guilmartin’s building had collapsed. He works in the next block and had already been to the site and spoken with Mike DiPiro who said that – amazingly – no one was hurt. He sent me a photo – taken at 10:48 am – which I posted to Eye.

[NYT]