Heavy snow forces Civic Centre closure

Nelson’s Civic Centre has been temporarily closed due to an unsafe amount of snow on the roof.

The trusses supporting the roof of the 88-year-old building were deemed unsafe to handle heavy snow loads last fall, forcing the city to develop an evacuation plan if snow loads became too heavy.  

In the plan, the city warned tenants that if eight or more inches of snow fell on the roof, the building would be evacuated. This week’s heavy snowfall prompted the first evacuation, so far. 

One of the building’s tenants, the Civic Theatre announced its closure in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon, stating that it cancelled the evening’s movie screenings and plan to provide an update Thursday morning on future operations for the week.