Flying roof like ‘Wizard of Oz’

By Juno McEnroe

Thursday, November 26, 2009

RESIDENTS at a newly built south Dublin apartment complex were left shaken after the roof of a penthouse was torn off by gale force winds.

It emerged last night that management at the Carrickmines Manor complex had inspected the building in the last 10 days.

There are now calls for high-rise residential buildings in the south Dublin area to be assessed by safety chiefs.

Up to 28 apartments in one block at the Carrickmines Manor development were evacuated after strong gusts of up to 50 knots an hour in the Dublin area ripped off the roof and hurled it to the ground. Emergency services helped evacuate the other two apartment blocks.

In scenes reminiscent of Hurricane Charley in 2004, witnesses described how the roof flew off at 8.30am. Resident Hazel Melbourne said: "I was just sitting there this morning getting ready for work and I heard the loud bang and the roof flew by my window.

"It was like the Wizard of Oz, the roof flew by my window – the entire silver top of my building."

Management at the apartments said it would take several weeks to repair the roof. An inspection of the building was done recently, said Ben Gough, managing director at Wyse Property Management.

"It’s a relatively new building in the last two years and everything looked fine. There are maintenance precautions in place to check the roofs every 10 days by our own inspection people. Tthey wouldn’t be civil engineers, they would be visual inspections."

The exposed apartment was being temporarily covered. Repairing it would take weeks, he said.

Nearly all residents in the complex were contacted by the afternoon, said Mr Gough, and most were offered the chance to move back in by evening.

Those wanting to remain in the temporary hotel accommodation for the night would be allowed, he said. The cause of the incident was unknown, he said.

"It needs to be seriously evaluated through the structural engineers and thereafter we’ll know exactly what happened."

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Fine Gael TD Olivia Mitchell called on the Health and Safety Authority to carry out a full safety audit on all high-rise buildings in the elevated areas.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, November 26, 2009