A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Cloquet's Nick Brown said he was starting his truck the morning of March 7 and looked up and realized his garage roof was missing. It had collapsed due to the weight of the snow. Fortunately, it was a later addition and the roof ended up resting on top of the previous flat roof and not on top of the 1976 Ford F-150 inside.
Cloquet resident and drone photographer AJ Miller took this photo of the Miller Hill Mall roof after a section collapsed early Tuesday, sending tons of snow inside the mall.
Brown looks over the third of his roof that survived the snow. He's hoping to build back bigger and sturdier, with more room inside for car projects.
The Duluth Miller Hill Mall isn't the only place in the Northland with a missing roof thanks to the snow.
When Cloquet's Nick Brown went to bed the night of March 6, his detached garage was intact. By the next morning, the roof had collapsed and the top window had shattered from the force, blowing glass shards at least 20 feet out onto the driveway.
Brown hadn't heard a thing.
"My room is in the corner, so about 8 feet away, and my boy's room is in the back, and the neighbors didn't hear it either. I just came out to start my truck and it was down," he said.
Brown estimated there was about 3 feet of packed snow on the garage roof when it went down silently in the night.
Unlike the Duluth mall, the collapsed roof didn't send snow into his garage, thanks to the existing flat roof underneath the peaked roof. For now, the remains of Brown's garage roof are resting on top of that previous structure and he's been busy keeping it clear of snow and water to try to keep the support beam inside from cracking further. They've shoveled so much snow off the roof, his dogs can just run up the snowbank to get a bird's eye view of the driveway.
An insurance adjuster was supposed to come evaluate the damage. Brown is hoping his insurance will cover replacement costs, but he hopes to use that money and build back bigger and better. In the meantime, he will have to delay a planned restoration project on his 1952 Chevy.
"Now it's supposed to snow again, so I'll be back up there shoveling next week," he said Tuesday.
This winter's above-average snowfall is also causing a space issue.
At the start of the winter, Ross Anderson's Moose Lake neighbor was plowing out two parking spaces in Anderson's driveway. That space has been shrinking steadily since December. Now, it's so narrow, Anderson can't park one car and open the doors all the way on both sides. There's just no more room, he said.
"I am so sick of snow. The banks I have in my yard are taller than me," Anderson said. "I'm thinking I'll have snow banks in my yard on the Fourth of July."
Caleb Peterson, director of public works for Cloquet, is hoping things won't be that bad for the giant snow piles the city has dumped at disposal sites near Veterans Park and between Carlton Avenue and Highway 45. He said snow storage was "at a premium" even before this week's predicted Thursday/Friday storm, especially when things warm up and get soggy, making access an issue.
Still, Peterson is looking forward to the spring thaw, despite the mess.
"It's been a long and challenging winter for our maintenance crews," Peterson said. "We would just ask for continued patience. Spring cleanup will take longer than normal. All the tree damage that knocked out power and blocked roadways in December will come to light as the snow banks begin to melt."
