Inwood Community Center damaged from collapse

INWOOD, I.A. (Dakota News Now) -The city of Inwood is buzzing after part of the community center collapsed Saturday night.

The community center was used for a number activities including a gym for recreation, the public library, and city offices.

Rick Rozeboom is a city councilor and volunteer firefighter for Inwood and says he never expected to hear the news.

“It comes as a shock when the pager goes off and you hear the location and a building collapse. Obviously, the first thing that goes through your mind is making sure everyone is okay,” said Rozeboom.

Community members have said they’re thankful nobody was hurt in the incident, with the gym typically in use on Saturday nights for recreational activities.

“It’s lucky — there’s always a lot of people in there on Saturday night with kids playing basketball, that kind of thing. I have a grandson. The other city guy and his kid, they’re here every Saturday shooting hoops, and they went up to Great Bear snowboarding,” said Scott Hanson, city maintenance manager.

City officials believe the heavy snowfall could have been a large contributing factor to the 35-year-old building collapsing.

“I think we had around forty inches of snow over the past few weeks here, and it could have been just too much for the building,” said Rozeboom.

They say the next step is waiting for an inspection and insurance to assess the building with hopes of trying to preserve as much of the original community center as they can.

“We’re hoping we can probably save the east end of the building. The west end is going to be demolished and rebuild. It’s shot,” said Hanson.

“It’s probably one of the most important buildings in Inwood, so we’ll do our best to ensure that we can continue to do everything we did just from different locations for a little while until we get everything sorted out,” said Rozeboom.

City officials say the community center will remain closed during this time.

For updates you can follow the link at City of Inwood | Inwood IA | Facebook.

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