BUTTE – Butte-Silver Bow’s building maintenance department is fighting to keep ice and heavy snow off of its buildings.
“It’s a battle with Mother Nature and she still seems to be winning,” said Buildings Manager Pat Holland.
She’s made a few large icicles on some of the city building drains. Even heated cables inside these drains have failed to stop the freezing.
“And it does keep a bit of it open, but with the below zero temperatures at night all this month it’s just been building up and blocking up,” said Holland.
The city has even hired private contractors to help clear the snow and ice from roofs after Butte was hit with record snowfall.
“We’ve had a few leaks throughout this period, but we’ve been able to get on top of them right away and maintain them,” said Holland.
On the roof of the Butte Business Development Center off Mercury Street there’s about a foot of snow all across the massive roof, and that’s why it’s important for the county to stay on top of trying to keep the ice clear because it could do a lot of damage.
“And what happens is some of these older buildings aren’t insulated as well, so they’re melting all the time in between and once it gets to a certain point if it can go over that line where the roofing is, it can certainly saturate down into the building,” he said.
Warmer weather will hopefully melt some of the snow and ice off these roofs.
