(Host) In southern Vermont, where the snow is already deep, state officials warned farmers to shovel their barn roofs to keep the structures from collapsing in the next storm.
But it wasn’t only barns that were getting attention, as VPR’s Susan Keese reports.
(Sound of shoveling, ice falling off roof)
(Keese) That’s the sound of a sledge hammer attacking a mass of ice built up in the eaves of a three story school building at Burr and Burton Academy.
(Harvey) "I’d say there’s a total of two to three thousand pounds of ice there."
(Keese) Dan Harvey of Arlington Roofing watches as a harnessed worker 20 feet up shatters the ice, releasing water and snow trapped behind it.
Harvey says icicles on the eaves are a warning that water is building up behind an ice dam.
(Harvey) "And a lot of times it finds its way down through the roof structure and gets into the interior and damages walls and ceilings and floors."
(Keese) Contractors have been out all week raking roofs in anticipation of the current storm which could dump another one to two feet in Southern Vermont.
For VPR News, I’m Susan Keese in Manchester.