Toys R Us Ceiling Collapses

[Ewan's My Man]

LANHAM, Md. (Feb. 22) - The roof of a Toys 'R' Us store collapsed Saturday, injuring nine people as heavy rain soaked an area already stressed by the weight of snow from the Presidents Day snowstorm, authorities said.

Fire Chief Ronald Blackwell said the injuries in the 11:45 a.m. collapse were non-life threatening. He also said he was ``cautiously optimistic'' no bodies would be found inside the building as firefighters called off the search for bodies around 7 p.m.

Firefighters still have not searched a 25-by-30 foot area of debris, because they have not been able to get under it, Prince George's County Fire Department spokesman Mark Brady said. Brady said cranes will be brought in Sunday to continue searching, and it's not believed any one who may have been trapped there would have survived.

Prince George's County Police reported no missing person calls, officials said.

Fire officials said only about 60 to 70 percent of the roof actually collapsed. Inside, the store's floor was littered with mangled bicycles, toys, candy and standing water.

Fire officials also said the way the building collapsed appeared to have helped people get out. They believe the center part of the roof fell, causing a domino effect toward the front of the store.

Fire officials estimate about 25 customers and 10 employees were inside at the time of the collapse.

Some witnesses reported seeing a woman and a child near the back of the store in the bicycle section before the collapse. Firefighters checked the area once and did not find them.

Doretea Burton, 29, was in the store with her mother and two children, a 1-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl, buying a high chair when she heard ``a roaring sound.''

``You could see the sky beams falling and beams bent,'' she said. ``For a moment we all thought we were going to die.''

Burton said she and her family had to walk circles around the rubble to get out.

She said she heard screams but didn't know if anyone was trapped. She saw another woman with a bloodied head.

``The roof was coming down as we ran. It was like it was following us,'' she said.

Donald Smith, 28, of Riverdale said he was buying birthday gifts for his daughter at the register when the collapse occurred.

``I heard a lot of metal crashing together. It was chaos,'' he said. ``A lot of screaming, a lot of people running for any exit they could find.''

Smith said he ran out the front door and then he and couple of others went back in to see if they could find others who were stuck.

``We called out 'Is anyone in here?' It was just silence,'' he said. ``We just tried as much as we could.''

Mike Molnar, a Toys ``R'' Us district manager, said he didn't know how many customers were in the building. ``It was a very light shopping day due to the weather,'' he said.

``Everything from the cash register back has collapsed towards the middle,'' he said. The building stands alone and is not part of a shopping complex.

Several roofs across the state have collapsed due to snow buildup and continuing rain.

Brady said Prince George's Plaza shopping center in Hyattsville was completely evacuated Saturday after firefighters discovered leaks in several stores and portions of the roof sagging.

Brady said several commercial garages have also experienced similar problems.

In Virginia, a Loudoun County nursing home was evacuated in after flooding. Tysons Galleria mall in Fairfax County was also briefly evacuated due to a leaky roof.

Earlier in the week, a Sears outlet store in Garrett County fell, causing about $100,000 in damage. In Cecil County, several chicken houses collapsed at an egg farm near Warwick, and a cannery near Wye Oak collapsed earlier in the week caused nearly $3 million in damage.

A band of rain embedded with storms paused over central Maryland on Saturday afternoon, adding to the weight of an already heavy snowpack on many buildings, said Don Lumpkins, operations officer at the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.

The band of storms prompted the National Weather Service to post a flood warning for a swath of central Maryland.

On Monday, a record 28.2 inches fell at nearby Baltimore-Washington National Airport and more than 16 fell at Washington's Reagan National Airport.

02/22/03 19:46 EST


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I have no clue where Lanham MD is...but Mike Molnar the manager is my friend's dad...small world

[~Tropical Punch 19~]

yeah i heard about that on the news. that's sad

[Janice]

It's a miracle nobody was killed. It would've been terrible if the store was crowded.

[Pitooey]

Whew Janice you are right....... This snow is wreaking havoc.