A section of a vacant school in Halifax has been demolished after the roof collapsed under the weight of heavy snow Friday morning.
The collapse triggered a motion sensor inside St. Patrick’s High School, which alerted the security company.
Fire crews responded to the abandoned school on Quinpool Road around 5 a.m. and quickly blocked off the scene.
The building was empty at the time and no one was injured.
An engineer says the collapse was limited to one section of the building but that some of the concrete panels under the roof had also buckled, creating a safety risk for pedestrians in the area.
The engineer recommended that those panels be removed and crews spent about 30 minutes tearing down panels and windows Friday morning.
“They had twisted under the weight of the roof collapsing, so we wanted to make sure that wouldn’t continue to be an issue,” said municipal spokesperson Tiffany Chase.
“We will be installing a fence and signage to alert the public that they should not be proceeding onto that section of the property,” Chase said.
St. Patrick’s High School first opened in 1954. It closed in 2007 and was already slated for demolition.
The building hasn’t been used since 2012.
The city had been seeking bids from private contractors to demolish the building and had already released its requirements. The bids were due April 7, but that will change, along with the requirements, now that part of the building has already been demolished.
The abandoned building wasn’t the only school plagued by roof problems on Friday.
Seven schools operated by the Halifax Regional School Board were also closed on Friday as crews worked to remove snow from their roofs.
“We felt it was important that we complete that task and get these last seven finished so that all our schools can be open on Monday,” said school board spokesperson Doug Hadley.
Worries about the structural integrity of snow-laden roofs have been a common theme this winter, with many buildings straining or buckling under the weight of heavy snow and ice.
The BMO Centre in Bedford has been closed due to snow and ice accumulation, but several ice pads are expected to re-open on Saturday.
Snow-removal workers and building inspectors have been kept busy, with many experiencing a backlog of work.
While some roof-clearing crews have been working for the past 42 days straight, the owner of one snow removal company says the coming days could be just as crucial.
“We get rain and we get the fog and we get down to minus temperatures again — all that stuff is going to freeze, so it’s actually making the snow heavier,” said George McCarthy.
“We don’t want to see anybody get hurt out here, but I’m telling you, in the next bit here, people need to be very cautious with what they’re doing.”
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Priya Sam
