Metrodome Roof Collapses
By admin
The Metrodome roof collapsed under the weight of snow this morning, KARE-11 in Minneapolis reports.
The building was to play host to today's Minnesota Vikings-New York Giants game, but blizzard conditions dumped 1-2 feet of snow on the Minneapolis area. Conditions also closed incoming runways at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, causing the Giants to spend Saturday night in Kansas City, Missouri.
NFL officials, on the advice of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission (MSFC), postponed today's game to tomorrow night, but pointed that there were no structural issues with the dome.
"There is no structural issue occurring [to the dome]," Steve Maki, director of facilities and engineering for the MSFC, said last night. "But we have a pretty heavy snow load up there and the way the wind was blowing it was getting really nasty for our crews so we pulled them down and we're going to have them back up there [Sunday] morning to remove the snow."
Kevin Seifert, a former Vikings beat-writer who now covers the NFC North for ESPN.com, quickly pointed out that this isn't the first time the roof has collapsed.
"The Metrodome roof has collapsed before. Key is whether the teflon is torn. If not, it could be re-inflated once snow removed", Seifert wrote.
There are reports that there is snow on the field, which could mean the teflon portion was torn. In which, the game will likely need to moved to another location. The University of Minnesota, who formerly shared the Metrodome with the Vikings, have a 50,000-seat open-air football stadium that opened in September of 2009.
Tomorrow's high temperature in Minneapolis is 4 degrees.