And with the elevated temperature, it would also serve to melt the snow in no time...
Posted on 12/12/2010 6:25:36 AM PST by raccoonradio
St. Paul, Minn. — The snowstorm that dumped more than 20 inches of snow on parts of Minnesota brought down the roof of the Metrodome on Sunday morning.
Witnesses, including the security director at the nearby Holiday Inn Metrodome, said the roof is no longer visible above the dome's concrete bowl.
"We went up to the 14th floor to look at it. It looks kind of like a big dish of sugar," the director, Chris Cowles, said.
Sunday's Vikings game against the New York Giants had already been rescheduled for Monday night.
Officials from the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission could not immediately be reached for comment. On Saturday, facilities and engineering director Steve Maki told the Star Tribune there was no structural issue occurring at the dome from the snow.
Maki told the newspaper crews had planned to go back up on the dome's roof Sunday morning to remove snow.
If the dome did collapse from Saturday's storm, it'd be the first time since the 1980s that that's happened.
TIME TO DIG OUT
The giant winter storm had moved out of Minnesota by Sunday morning, but dangerous wind chills moved in to replace it. The National Weather Service issued a wind chill advisory for a large swath of the state, including the Twin Cities and Duluth. A blizzard warning remained in effect for southeastern Minnesota.
Minnesotans, many of whom were forced to stay home Saturday because of snow-clogged streets and no public transportation, are digging out.
Snow totals reached 20 inches in some places. Shakopee received the most snow with 21.5 inches. Everywhere else in the Twin Cities area received at least 10 inches.
How would a moveable roof help, if they had to keep it closed because it was snowing?
Wow. Thanks again!
No doubt it was built by union workers. But I doubt if it was poor construction. It was just that the roof was not designed to hold that load. They wanted to save money. As much as I despise them, not everything is the fault of unions.
And bert, I strongly doubt that a lazy union maintenance man was left in charge of a multimillion dollar facility during the storm. I don’t think they can crank the pressure up high enough to hold that load.
I read somewhere that they may have intentionally lowered the pressure to prevent a total failure.
So send an airplane with an equipment manager and some helpers back to NY. They have all day, they’re not trying to play until tomorrow.
And with the elevated temperature, it would also serve to melt the snow in no time...
“20 inches of snow isn’t that much here in Massachusetts. I assumed that Minnesota was similar, but it appears I was wrong.”
More than 10” in a single storm is something that happens only once in three or four years. Yesterday’s storm was called the worst since the Halloween blizzard of 1991 which dropped 28”.
When I lived in New Hampshire, 10” storms seemed to happen a couple of times a year.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the roof was intentionally deflated.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/12/12/snowstorm-sunday-metrodome-roof/
Officials at the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which operates the dome, said two triangle panels on the north end of the stadium are damaged. Officials intentionally deflated the dome.
“You deflate it so you don’t lose the entire roof,” said Bill Lester, executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission. “But that’s all we’re going to talk about until we get some more detail.”
Love how these billionaire pro sports team owners insist that someone else (ie, the Taxpayer) pay to build them their place of business. They can all go f*** themselves, as far as I’m concerned.
I would never have guessed that.
The moveable roof in Indianapolis allows for open air activities during good weather. Otherwise it can be closed.
Indianapolis also had a COLLAPSABLE DOME, just like Mpls ~ and you see what they did to it once they got a NEW ROOFED STADIUM ~ they blew it up and people cheered.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello tweted that the league and Vikings officials are considering moving the Vikings-Giants game to TCF Bank Stadium on Monday night or possibly to another NFL Domed stadium (Detroit or Indianapolis perhaps?).
See the peak?
That's a pretty flat peak.
They have to send guys up there to clean the snow off. They pulled the crews last night because the storm was so bad.
Also, they have to consider access from the airport, and so far you can still get from the airport to the stadium in Indianapolis, but I wouldn't count on Detroit for that.
This storm is riding NAWTH!
mortreport
Ford Field already had been contacted by NFL. Dome stadium. Travel nearly equal. Fox has TV equip in place.
7 minutes ago via web
More likely the engineers had to design something that would fit into the city’s budget from the special taxes they collected.
Actually, in preparation for snow storms, they increase the pressure and raise the temperature to aid in snow melt. They send crews up to shovel. This storm came with 40mph winds and below zero temps, they had to pull the crews off. For what it’s worth, I live 10 minutes south of the dome, we had 22” in about 16 hours. That’s a lot of snow in a short period of time. This was a bad storm, not just due to snow - the wind and cold are multipliers to a lazy warm snowfall.
I bet you they were shocked that it snowed on that roof.
I’m in Indy.
I wonder if they will let us in for free?
Heck us taxpayers here are on the hook for all of that $700 million edifice.
They even charge $15 bucks for high school games in the Luke and the Irsays (Colts owners) get ALL THE MONEY FOR THAT.
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