The water park roof that collapsed Tuesday night in Ottertail, shuttering the Thumper Pond Resort and leading to the evacuation of 25 to 30 resort guests, was never inspected by state, county or city building code officials, a state official has confirmed.
Such inspections are not required in Otter Tail County, one of 65 Minnesota counties that opted out of inspections. Even in such counties, however, builders are responsible for following the state building code, said Scott McLellan, director of construction codes and licensing at the state Department of Labor and Industry.
McLellan said Saturday that the timing of the collapse is strange because many structural failures are caused by extreme wind and heavy snowfall — but the area had neither. Had the roof caved in when people were in the pool instead of minutes before midnight when most were sleeping, the damage could have been more than architectural, he said.
"It's a good lesson to recognize that a lot of our buildings aren't regulated by the building code, but [thankfully] we didn't have to have loss of life to experience it," McLellan said.
"This could have been much worse."
Forensic engineers combed through the roof wreckage Thursday and Friday, but have not yet said what caused the roof to crash down. No one was injured.
The 12,000-square-foot water park opened in 2006. General Manager Brad Stevens could not be reached for comment Saturday.
