Landmark wooden arch crashes down on street in Russell, Man.
CBC News | Posted: June 9, 2016 5:04 PM | Last Updated: June 9, 2016
Arches dubbed 'architectural marvel, evidence of superior craftsmanship'
The town of Russell is dealing with a case of fallen arches.
A massive wooden arch, one of several spanning the intersections along Main Street, crashed down Wednesday night.
Mayor Len Derkach said no one was hurt and no vehicles were damaged when it fell onto Main and Augusta Street around 8:30 p.m.
"That's the blessing in all this. We got away scot-free," he said, adding he was out of town at the time and "my first question when I heard about it was 'is anyone hurt?'"
Contractors were examining the broken beam on Thursday to determine what caused it to collapse and will also be inspecting the condition of the remaining arches.
Derkach said it appears the one that came down had snapped about one-third of the way up the beam from the ground.
The town is preparing to host the annual Prairie Walleye Classic Boat Parade down Main Street on Friday. The route will need to be altered if the integrity of any of the other arches is questionable.
"At least it didn't break during the parade," said Derkach. "That is the utmost importance — the safety of everyone."
Eight sets of arches, salvaged from the Dauphin Arena when it was demolished a few years ago, were erected around 2007.
A story about the arches on the website for the Russell Inn calls them "an architectural marvel" and "evidence of superior craftsmanship and modern engineering genius."
The engineers who helped put the arches up will be coming to look at them and see whether they can be reinforced, Derkach said.
"They augment the Main Street of our community and we don't want to see them taken down but the utmost importance is the safety of everyone," he said, adding he is hopeful something can be done to replace the one that collapsed.
"We'll be brainstorming to see what to do."