Debris from old YMCA breaks through roof of nearby business

• Inside Prairie Decorating

Damage is shown to a back room at Prairie Decorating after a steel beam and chunks of debris broke through the building’s roof.
• On the roof

Workers tend to Prairie Decorating’s roof Friday afternoon.
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WORTHINGTON — Fridays tend to be a quieter day for John Roos, owner of Prairie Decorating in downtown Worthington.

That made it even more heartbreaking to have to turn at least half a dozen customers away on Friday — one day after a steel beam and chunks of debris broke through his roof and sent an employee practically out the door in terror.

Roos had just sat down for lunch Thursday when he received a call from a frantic Becky Clark, notifying him that “some stuff just came through the roof.” He could tell by the sound of her voice that it wasn’t good, and said he was on his way.

What Roos found when he arrived on the scene was even worse than what he could have imagined.

Workers from Dulas Excavating Inc., of Wells — hired by the city of Worthington to demolish the old YMCA — were believed to be working on the side farthest away from Prairie Decorating’s back wall when the damage occurred.

“A steel beam, we think from a second floor window, came right through,” said Roos, standing at the back of his store late Friday afternoon. “By the grace of God nobody got hurt.”

Clark was with a customer when the thundering crash shook the building. Had she not been helping someone, Roos said she might otherwise have been mixing paint in the very spot where wooden beams and lathe now jut out with their sharp splinters.

By Friday afternoon, workers were on top of the building, securing blue tarp over the damage to keep birds from getting inside the store. Roos hopes a plan can be developed for repairing the structure on Monday.

“Everybody that’s involved is working to find a solution,” he said. “We’ll be open for business as soon as we can. We’re down, but we’re not out yet.”

Roos and his wife, Tammy, purchased Prairie Decorating in September 2010. Now, they’re left wondering just how much of their product is salvageable.

Practically everything in the store is covered in dust and dirt, and two cases of paint stored on the floor of the back room are expected to have some water damage. Roos hasn’t opened the boxes yet, saying, “I just don’t want to look.”

Electricity was finally restored late Friday, although the phones still weren’t working.

“Structurally, we don’t know (how much damage there is),” Roos said.

Still, he has much to be thankful for.

“Nobody got hurt — that’s all I care about,” he shared. “That’s what I said to the guys yesterday. If anybody got hurt, we would have had an entirely different conversation.”

Tags: news, worthington, ymca, business