Municipal engineers released a new online resource on Thursday meant for commercial building owners to identify if their building in the Anchorage area contains a roof type that has been blamed for numerous snow-induced collapses.
The resource comes as the municipality says the snow load on buildings is approaching 90% of the 40 pounds per square inch design load. In order to create the map, the city identified commercial properties with flat roofs and built between 1970-1995. Engineers have found that buildings with these characteristics are most likely to have metal plate-connected wood roof trusses.
The data in the map is from publicly available appraisal data, in which engineers took 90,000 parcels and identified roughly 1,200 to be at the highest risk of roof failure due to heavy snow loads.
Daniel King, a plan review engineer with the municipality, says by putting the map in everyone’s hands, they’re taking a proactive approach to the safety issues and hopes it brings more awareness to those commercial building owners.
Engineers say the map is not meant to categorize all dangerous buildings, but instead point out the locations that may have wooden trusses and metal gang nail plates.
