Published Monday, Jan. 18, 1999 That spelled the end of the 130-year-old, one-time opera house that housed the VFW. The building at 509 Liberty St., Jamestown, is being torn down, said Jamestown Fire Lt. Jim Brown.
The flat roof was reported to have collapsed between 1:30 and 2 a.m., said Patricia Potter, senior vice commander of the post.
The rear portion of the roof fell to the ground floor, Mrs. Potter said. The damaged area included a recently constructed meeting room and kitchen addition.
Jamestown police this morning were keeping people away from the building because of the fear of falling bricks, Mrs. Potter said.
The VFW wasn't the only place where heavy snow took its toll. Several other structures in Mercer County have collapsed in the last few days.
Ruth Nevinsky, 1099 Bon Air Drive, Sharon, said she thought she heard an explosion at about 12:30 p.m. Saturday but it turned out to be the collapse of her enclosed patio under the weight of snow and chunks of ice.
"It's just a mess,'' Ms. Nevinsky said this morning as she waited for an insurance adjuster to arrive. "It looks like a bomb hit.''
Ms. Nevinsky said she knows of two other neighbors -- next to her and behind her on Hadley Drive -- whose patio roofs collapsed, but hers was the worst.
"We used it all the time,'' she said.
After hearing the noise, she said she thought the dining room which adjoined the patio was awfully bright.
"The whole thing had fallen down. I just sat down and cried. It's a shock."
A picnic table, benches and swing were ruined but the door (which froze shut two weeks ago) remained standing, she said.
She's planning to have a new roof built with wood instead of aluminum.
"I'm just happy no one was hurt,'' she said.
Also in Sharon, the roof of an office building owned by Sharon Regional Health System at Ormond and East State Street collapsed this morning, firefighters said. No one was injured.
The roof of a home on South Irvine Avenue in Sharon collapsed Friday morning, while the weight of snow and ice brought down an awning at the Boyle Builduing in the 100 block of East State Street Saturday morning.
Last week, heavy snow collapsed sheds at two barns in Delaware Township. Tuesday afternoon, the roof fell on the shed at a Foulk Road barn owned by John Buchy, said Fredonia Fire Chief George Benninghoff. An entrapped cow had to be destroyed, the fire chief said.
Cattle were rescued from a Wasser Road barn, owned by Brian Seige, when the roof collapsed there, the fire chief said.
