High winds Wednesday afternoon sheared the roof from a building in the Ionia County village of Clarksville and tore down part of its walls.
The building is in the 100 block of Main Street, south of Cross Street. As of Wednesday afternoon, the roof was lying in the road in front of the building and it was surrounded by debris from falling walls. A large front window was shattered.
The Clarksville fire chief told 24 Hour News 8 that the top portion of the building is still expected to collapse. Crews from the fire department will remain on the scene overnight to keep an eye on things. In the meantime, residents are asked to avoid Main Street.
Inside the structure was a restaurant that was undergoing renovations.
“We were stepping outside when we heard the initial boom of it,” Alan Jackson, who owns a nearby repair shop, told 24 Hour News 8. “It had blown the front window out of the building. I knew that the people that were renovating it were working so I come down to see if there was anybody inside, and that’s when I seen the back wall was gone.”
Jackson said that after firefighters arrived, “half of the roof section lifted off and come over the top.”
“It flipped right over the top of the building,” he continued. “About 10 minutes later, the second half of the roof come off. And now since then, it’s just been pieces falling here and there.”
No one was hurt.
Cleanup is expected to start Thursday.
The building that was damaged was home to the city library up until about two weeks ago.