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 the President’s Day blizzard, officials said.
Miraculously, police believe that everyone in the store made it out without serious injuries – 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, though the search continued last night.
There was one scare when a searched dog seemed to have located a corpse. But after hours of searching with dogs and thermal imagery devices, no body has been found.
Cops said that the owners of all the cars in the parking lot were accounted for after checking all the license plates. If anyone is in the wreckage, they would have had to come on foot or by bus.