This is the house across the field behind us. I've never been up there but it looks like it was just an aluminum roof over his deck. There's a hot tub underneath that mess. It crashed overnight. It prompted me to go out this morning and shovel the snow off my two aluminum garden sheds. Glad I did because they were starting to sag pretty good.

 

Flat roofs in snowy areas can be a bad combo especially when it's a roof like that(I'm assuming it was framed poorly since it was just for a patio or what not). Regardless, that sucks!

How much snow?

 

I don't know what our total amount of snow has been in the last month but my sheds had 2-2 1/2ft on them. The roof on my house has probably between 18-20 inches, maybe a bit more in a couple spots.

 

Damn, thats alot of weight, no wonder.

 

I had a aluminum awning over my deck and it collapsed. Snow and ice bowed it in the middle. Mine looked similar

 

yep not too uncommon around here. Was happening to a lot of people last year in the october storm (2006) with all that wet snow.

 

I can remember sawing sections of snow on our roof in Alaska to keep it from destroying the house. We would saw it into squares and shove it off the roof. When we were done you could step off the roof onto the snow pile all the way around the house. It was pretty impressive.