Carla D-Great new adventures and an Amazing Life

Oh my, the devastation. In hindsight is there anything that could have been done to save the shed? How old was it? It isn't uncommon here for people with old barns to be warned they need to rake or shovel the roofs to keep them from collapsing under a predicted heavy snowfall. I guess none of us not in flood plains think about the possibility of flooding unless we are close to a river. I hope for the best for all those affected.

Bruce said:

Oh my, the devastation. In hindsight is there anything that could have been done to save the shed? How old was it? It isn't uncommon here for people with old barns to be warned they need to rake or shovel the roofs to keep them from collapsing under a predicted heavy snowfall. I guess none of us not in flood plains think about the possibility of flooding unless we are close to a river. I hope for the best for all those affected.

Click to expand...

I don’t know how old the shed was. It may have been 20 years old. I don’t really know.we were really worried about Becky’s she’d as well. Fortunately it is cleared now. But it had looked like this for a few weeks.

I’ll try to snap a picture of their shed when I drive by in a little bit. I’m pretty sure that clearing their roof of the snow load they could have saved theirs. I’m really glad their insurance plans on replacing theirs though. We’ve also had several fires, house and barn this last couple of weeks. They are also blaming them on the huge snowfall as well. That does make sense. Electricity and snow don’t mix very well. Many power lines have needed to be tightened. The electric company has been quite busy lately.


I wonder how our cabin is fairing right now. That is in a low spot.

You sure have a lot of drifted snow! Hard to tell from the pictures but it looks like the shed's roof pitch wasn't very steep. I've been lucky so far with my ancient barns. The pitch is pretty steep and the wind blows so hard that a lot of the time the snow mostly blows off the roof as it falls.

Pitch around here is typically 4/12 or 6/12 around here. I have no clue if that’s considered steep or not. I’ve often thought that roofs here aren’t steep enough on pole sheds, not with our snowfall. Here’s a better picture of what’s left of their shed. The roof on the shed looks pretty steep though. Steeper than ours. I’m trying to figure out how long it is. If you look at the side of that shed. Parts of the roof poked through the sides. Could those be rafters or support beams? How far are those usually apart. They didn’t have a loft. Just open trusses.

Oh my. Not sure what those boards are coming out so far down the building but they are all about the same level. Would be interesting to see the inside. MAYBE if they are prefab trusses it collapsed first to the side we can't see pulling the trusses down inside the top plates and then shifted down and out such that the trusses pierced the sheathing? Or maybe they pulled back just enough to come off the top plate (which they should have been fastened to) then slid down the side? It does look like there might be a "tear" above each one. Maybe there is a horizontal board running the length of the building that stopped the slide and that is why they are all about the same level.

I'm guessing my barn roof is about an 8:12, maybe 7:12. Our old house was 14:12.

I did kinda wonder if it wasn’t something like that. I don’t think there is anything metal in our pole shed. To me those look like steel that’s poking out of the sides. I did zoom in on the image. As odd as this might be, I think those stakes were punctured through at seams in the siding. It looks like there is separation above and below it. That’s what I find quite odd. I think there is a cross brace half way down the walls in the shed we use. I wonder if that could possibly be strong enough to stop a falling roof at that place in the wall. I wonder how wide a piece sheet metal siding is. It looks like there are 10 or 11 equal size sections. I think the sections are about 8’ on the shed we use. That would make this shed 80’ or 88’ long. That’s a pretty big shed. I wish I knew more about construction or building assembly.

And figure out what was done wrong on theirs so you can see if it was done similarly on yours

Yeah the separation both above and below is why I originally thought maybe they punched through but since the separation seems to go all the way to the top, I wondered if the beams had been shoved down through it.

Wisconsin has been declared to be in a State of emergency by the governor.

We got our pre-approval, finally. Now we need to find a place.

Bad in Nebraska too.

Yeah, I don’t think Wisconsin is the only one hit hard this spring. Colorado, Nebraska, West Virginia have been hit hard too, I think. I suspect there are HUGE pockets all around the country are suffering as well. I hadn’t even thought about this aspect. But, I’ve seen people mentioning their concerns over losing established crops not coming up. I’m thinking it was the grasses, hays, but I thought I heard something about bean and wheat or oats as well. But, I have no clue abcrops and what might be perennials. I don’t know how much it costs to plant a large field. But, if it’s a perennial and can be cut more than once a year I’m thinking there has to be a huge financial loss. Not only in the seed but the multiple harvests or cuttings lost could likely add up really fast. Especially if it’s hay or alfalfa. Even cheap years, a small bale can cost $5-7/each. That’s gold.