Heavy rain leads to roof collapse at Waterford ice arena

Monday's heavy rain shut down an ice arena in Waterford when the roof collapsed, leading to an evacuation.

A 20 foot by 20 foot section of roof collapsed inside, and trucks with hoses are sucking up the water from inside.

There were no injuries and the ice arena expects to reopen Tuesday.

The roof section collapsed at about 6 p.m. Monday at the Lakeland Ice Arena when this happened. Dozens of youth hockey players inside were using two of the three rinks there and luckily when the roof section fell, the ice was not being used at all.

"The amount of water that was up there, the leaks that were coming through, a 20 by 20 section. not over the ice but over the stand area fell through," said Brad Martin, hockey director. "And then the water started rushing through the rink itself."

Within minutes Brad Martin says the entire area was filled with six inches of water. After the initial shock of the roof collapse happened and they realized no one was hurt, the priority became getting everyone out safely.

"We're very fortunate in that we have several firefighters that are members here," Martin said. "We had five here tonight and they jumped into action opening up doors and getting people out of the building, making sure it was safe for everybody."

From there they immediately called in the professionals to clean up the mess and started a game plan for what to do next.

Officials tell us a construction will be out Tuesday morning and skaters will be back on the ice on two of the three rinks first thing Tuesday as well. They expect to have the third ice rink, where the damage happened to be open in a month.