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November 26, 2009

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Carports collapse under heavy snow

By Jeremy Twitchell (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008 | 9:53 p.m.

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Heavy snow accumulation caused five carports to collapse at an apartment complex following Wednesday's winter storm.

While most of the valley escaped the storm unscathed, the Mesa Verde Apartments, located on Annie Oakley Drive just north of Sunset Road, took a heavy beating from Mother Nature.

While an unknown number of cars were damaged in some of the collapses, residents whose cars were parked beneath two of the carports were saved by alert neighbors.

Resident Kurt Kornfeld said two or three carports had collapsed by around 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, when he heard the carport across from his apartment, which serves another building, began to creak.

"It was loud," he said. "… I just thought to myself, it's coming – it's coming down."

At about the same time, he heard the carport that served his building beginning to creek, so he said he and another neighbor began pounding on doors in the two buildings and telling neighbors to move their cars.

Kornfeld said both the carports were full when they started knocking doors; when they collapsed just 10 minutes later, all the residents who had been parked there had managed to move their cars.

"I knocked on one door and the woman said, 'Do I really need to move it right now?'," Kornfeld said. "I told her, 'If you want to keep your car, then yeah, you probably should.'"

Not everyone was so lucky – the initial collapses caught everyone off guard and damaged some of the cars parked there.

"Some of (the cars) had broken windows," Kornfeld said.

Another apartment resident, Jeff Williams, said he wasn't at home when the collapse occurred, but was surprised when he came home and saw it.

"When it was snowing, I didn't worry," he said. "I didn't realize how poorly built these things are. I know it was wet snow and all, but still."

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or jeremy.twitchell@hbcpub.com.

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