Accumulated Snow Causes Three Local Barns To Collapse

By Andrew Gorosko and Nancy Crevier

Jean and Charlie Fadus were having breakfast Wednesday morning at their 57 West Street home when they heard a noise outside, initially not knowing what it was.

Ms Fadus recalled the incident.

“We were having breakfast and I thought a truck went by, there was a rumble,” she said.

“The lights flickered, and Charlie said it must have been a chipmunk or a squirrel on the lines. He got up to look, though, and the back [of the] barn was gone. We didn’t realize it, but it was the front [of the] barn, too. It all happened so quickly,” Ms Fadus recalled.

“No animals out there, just a lot of stuff,” she observed.

The antique Fadus barn that had collapsed under the weight of recent accumulated snow was one of three such structures that collapsed Wednesday morning.

The other collapsed barns are located at the intersection of Currituck Road and Hedge Meadow Lane, and near the intersection of Currituck Road and Butterfield Road. There were no injuries.

Receiving a call for service at 9:49 am, Newtown Hook & Ladder firefighters responded to the Fadus property. They secured the scene and removed debris from the street adjacent to collapsed barn.

The house and barn are 1770 vintage properties, the Faduses explained.

The site formerly was farmed by the late Al Boyson, who had a dairy operation.

Stored inside the fallen barn were canoes, kayaks, and a host of turn-of-the-century farming equipment. However, a workshop located adjacent to the fallen barn remained intact.

The Faduses have lived at the home for the past 32 years.

Karen and Michael Sepp of 3 Hedge Meadow Lane own an early 18th Century barn that collapsed about 8:30 am that morning.

The Sepps, with the aid of Town Historian Daniel Cruson, have tried to obtain grant money to restore the ancient barn that sits on a street corner where traffic whizzes by on Currituck Road.

Similarly, the weight of accumulated snow caused the structure to fall in on itself.

Last summer, an effort was made to stabilize a part of the structure, Ms Sepp explained. The installation of some new wood can be seen at the rear of the barn.

Ms Sepp said she is hopeful that some grant money will become available toward the restoration of the antique structure.

Also, about 1½ miles to the north on Currituck Road, another barn collapsed, apparently due to the weight of accumulated snow. That structure is located alongside Currituck Road, near its intersection with Butterfield Road.

Fire Marshal Bill Halstead explained that in the case of an old barn, when one supporting member fails, it can well lead to other structural members failing and the structure collapsing.

The loading placed on the old roof is simply so great that the structure fails, he said.

If the area receives more snow, there could well be more roof failures, he said.

Accumulations of snow on local roofs have not been able to melt between recent storms, he noted, with the snow loads on roofs continuing to increase following successive storms.

Town Historian Mourns Loss

Mr Cruson said Thursday morning that the collapse of three historic barn structures was a great loss for the town. The barns were all examples of farm buildings that exemplified Newtown’s agricultural heritage, he said.

“The Sepp barn [on Hedge Meadow Lane] was a sad loss,” said Mr Cruson. “That was one that [the owner] was going for a grant to stabilize or restore that barn. He had missed out on an earlier grant,” said Mr Cruson. The Sepp barn was one of the oldest barns in Newtown, he added, and had a unique frame construction that set it apart from other barns of its era.

That barn had been a worry for him before the snow and ice threatened it further, said Mr Cruson, due to being structurally in bad shape. However, he said, he had not expected it to go down with the snow.

“The Boyson barn [on West Street] is a loss of part of our earlier heritage,” said Mr Cruson, who noted that the Boyson farm had been one of the town’s largest dairy farms for many years.

“What makes the loss of these barns even sadder,” he said, “is that we are just becoming aware of the importance of farm outbuildings. Barns have been kind of ignored for years, but to lose three in this snowstorm is just terrible.”

Mr Cruson headed a study in 2009 that inventoried Newtown’s barns and outbuildings for the first time. Barns were essential buildings to the community, which was largely agricultural at one time, Mr Cruson said. A number of the barns that remain standing were built, or rebuilt, during the 20th Century, he said. “The early barns, though, dating from the 1800s, there are only a handful of them. I would guess we have less than 20 of those early barns,” said Mr Cruson.

Whether or not other historical farm structures are at risk this winter is anyone’s guess, Mr Cruson said. “Once water gets in and the roof starts to go, the barn is on a downward spiral. It’s just a sad loss.”