Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 15, 1993 TAG: 9303150077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS STEUART STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
ARENA'S ROOF COLLAPSE `A QUIRK OF NATURE'
The blizzard of 1993 dealt out just the right conditions to collapse the air-supported roof of Radford University's Dedmon Center."I call it a quirk of nature," said Ron Downs, the director of the center. "We are pretty sure it was a two-fold problem. It was a combination of a fast drop in the barometric pressure and the weight of the snow on the roof."
The collapse was the first in the 12 years since the roof was installed.
When the storm reached full force Saturday, the barometric pressure plummeted, causing a sensor on one of the six fans in the center to get a false reading and cut back on the volume if air it was blowing into the center.
By the time the blower system had recovered, the weight of the snow forced the roof to its lowest point, 15 feet above the main basketball court.
Two foot-long tears were visible in the one-16th-inch Teflon-coated fiberglass inner liner Saturday after the fabric had snagged on the shot clocks on top of the basketball goals.
After further inspection, several smaller holes were found in the inner liner.
Another hole, which Downs described as the size of a frying pan, was discovered in the one-eighth-inch outer layer directly above the basketball goal at the north end of the main court.
Downs said none of the holes were causing problems.
Saturday night's Big South Conference women's basketball tournament championship, between Radford and UNC-Greensboro, was postponed. The game was rescheduled for March 20 at the center.
During past snows, the heat inside the facility was turned up to melt the snow off the dome-shaped canvas.
"The snow came down so hard and so fast that it stuck instead of melting and running off," Downs said.
The roof was reinflated around 2 p.m. Saturday by turning on all of the six fans in the blowing system to increase air pressure inside the building, a process that's similar to blowing up a balloon. Workers immediately began shoveling and sweeping about 18 inches of snow off the roof as soon as it was raised.
About 20 workers from the university's physical plant separated into teams and worked around the clock Saturday night, in roughly 10-minute intervals, to help keep the snow off of the roof.
Downs was one of those shoveling, working from about 9:30 a.m. until 10:30 Saturday night. He was back at the center Sunday morning.
"I'll tell you one thing. I learned a long time ago that you don't read your job description," Downs said. "You just get out here and do what needs to be done."
Memo: Correction