The Recorder
EVANSVILLE—With the heavy snow and ice accumulations around Manitoulin Island, reports are that some buildings around the Island have crumpled under this heavy load. One of those to have experienced this exact thing is Evansville business operator Mike Meeker, of Meeker’s Aquaculture.
“Yes, I had two buildings basically crushed by the ice and snow,” Mr. Meeker told the Recorder on Monday. “According to my insurance company reps, there have been multiple buildings gone down in the area this winter.”
Mr. Meeker explained that in his case, two of his buildings came down on the same night, last Friday evening. “One was a coverall building for our compost mix (Meeker’s Magic Mix) and the other was an aluminum arch building. The latter building was 40×60 feet in size and made with a special type of aluminum, and the coverall building was 200×40 feet wide.”
“It was very surprising that the buildings came down, they were both over 10 years old, and that both came down on the same night (Friday),” said Mr. Meeker. “But I understand from my insurance representatives that there have been at least five other reports of buildings coming down this winter.”
“It was a shock,” stated Mr. Meeker, pointing out that, fortunately, since both his buildings collapsed at night no one was working in them. “And there was nothing to suspect this was going to happen, there were no signs. The guys had been working on the building the day before (for feed).”
He noted, “we’ve had winters with a lot more snow on the building. In fact, one year you could watch rabbits running up the side of the snow banks and up and over the building,” said Mr. Meeker.
“I think what happened is that all the freezing rain we have had in the area froze on top of the buildings, which added a lot of weight on top of the snow,” said Mr. Meeker.
“We were able to salvage a lot of the fish food,” he said of the Meeker’s Magic Mix building. However, as for the second building, he was unsure how much damage was done to the equipment found within.
“So far what we’ve seen is no serious damage to the equipment, although we won’t know until we can get a real good look at everything.”
