City workers cleared debris following the partial collapse of a building Friday morning in Guntersville.
We're learning more about what may have caused a Guntersville building to partially collapse in the early hours of Friday morning.
Officials said the partial building collapse happened about 3:50 a.m. Thankfully, no one was in the building at the time.
This was the old Marshall County legislative office. On the backside of the office was a pub. Numerous individuals and employees were out Friday helping pack up what's left of both the pub and office. The Marshall County building inspector said this is an ongoing investigation but may have been due to stopped-up drains on the roof. Friday night's heavy amount of rain is possibly making it worse and adding too much weight for the roof to take. The Guntersville fire marshal said now the priority is on making everything safe before reopening surrounding businesses.
Fire Marshal Matt Lang said, “The business next to it is not empty. We are looking at hopefully allowing them to continue business through the weekend. We're going to make sure it's safe for people to be there, and if we have crews out working, we may have to have some hours there that it's closed. I don't know that for sure yet, but we're still looking into it.â€
Unfortunately for the pub, he said it may be a while. ​
“It will be closed because it was affected, and obviously it's going to be closed until renovations can take place and we can get it structurally put back together,†said Lang.
Lang said it's hard to say whether or not this partial collapse could have been prevented.
