CMU Prof: Pgh. Roofs Can Withstand the Snow

Despite the roof collapse of the Rostraver Ice Garden Sunday, a Carnegie Mellon University professor says locals shouldn’t worry about the safety of their own buildings.

Engineering Professor Irving Oppenheim says the structures in and around Pittsburgh are designed to withstand as much as three feet of snow. He says until the buildup of snow reaches four or five feet, residents need not worry about their roofs caving in.

Oppenheim says even the older structures of the city are capable of holding up, as evidenced by their survival over the decades.

He says he advises strongly against climbing onto a roof to extract snow by hand.

The CMU professor says the relatively small number of collapsed roofs among the hundreds of thousands of structures is a testament to the sturdiness of Pittsburgh’s buildings.