The snow-covered roof of a Maryland Toys ‘R’ Us crashed down on top of shopping parents and children yesterday, injuring eight people, including a 3-year-old, as heavy rain waterlogged an area already blanketed by last week’s Presidents Day blizzard, officials said.
Miraculously, police believe that everyone in the store made it out without serious injury despite the suddenness of the collapse.
“It was spontaneous; it was not slow,” said Prince George’s County Fire Chief Ronald Blackwell. “It was not gradual.”
The heavy rain soaked the thick snow on the store’s flat roof, causing nearly 90 percent of the Lanham building to fall in.
All 10 store employees had been accounted for shortly after the 11:45 a.m. collapse. Three were taken to hospitals with cuts and bruises.
Cops believe they have accounted for all the customers in the toy store at the time of the collapse, although the search continued last night.
There was one scare when a search dog seemed to have located a body. But after hours of searching with dogs and thermal-imagery devices, no body had been found.