Business owner watches own roof collapse

COEUR D'ALENE -- Another business collapse, this time in Coeur d'Alene. While it may not be the first to collapse in the Lake City, it's a first in it's own right.

Big Country Communications is the first building with a pitched roof to collapse in Coeur d'Alene, Big Country Communications owner Jim Van Sky witnessed the collapse of his own business.

"You couldn't believe it, it was surreal," said Van Sky.
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Van Sky has housed his business in the building for more than 20 years. In that time it has survived more than 20 winters without even a leak.

"I could never in a hundred years envision this was going to be to this extent, it's incomprehensible'" he said.

Spokane, Wash., residents cope with record snow

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Local boy Bing Crosby may have sung about the joys of a "White Christmas," but snow - 6 1/2 feet in the past three weeks - has residents begging for relief.

This unusually harsh winter has disrupted schools, traffic, garbage pickup and mail service in the city of 200,000, the largest on the northern border between Seattle and Minneapolis. Tempers are so frayed that a man was arrested for shooting at a snow plow operator on Monday.

Roofs are collapsing, streets are clogged with ice and slush and locals are starting to refer to this as Sno-maggedon.

As many as 200 members of the Washington National Guard were being dispatched to the Spokane area to help with snow removal, particularly on school rooftops, Laura Lockard, a spokeswoman for Gov. Chris Gregoire, said Tuesday.
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Hotlines at Spokane Mental Health are getting twice the number of calls from people seeking help, said Staci Cornwell of the agency. Some are from elderly people who need help picking up medications, or with shoveling. Other callers are just agitated.
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The winter has been so bizarre that when the roof of a health club collapsed into the swimming pool, search-and-rescue divers spent two hours sifting through the debris in the pool to search for bodies. None was found.

Weight on roofs is a major problem. The National Weather Service has estimated that the existing snow is placing a load of about 25 pounds per square foot roof on roofs designed to hold 30 to 40 pounds. Rain forecast to follow the snow this week will add significant new weight, the agency said.

That has created a brisk market for day laborers willing to go up on roofs and shovel snow off for at least $15 per hour.

July '08: State’s Climate Action Team continues work in Spokane

OLYMPIA – Washington’s Climate Action Team meets Friday, July 25, in Spokane to continue its work on actions to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases in the state.

Climate Action Team (CAT) members are working to turn some of the 2007 Climate Advisory Team’s most promising recommendations into policies and actions to help meet greenhouse gas emission reductions. Gov. Chris Gregoire first outlined those reductions in Executive Order 07-02 in February 2007. The 2008 Legislature codified the reductions in HB 2815, the Governor’s request legislation on climate change and green jobs.
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About 20 CAT members and staff will travel to and from Spokane on a bus powered by biodiesel.