The roof collapsed at an Okotoks horse boarding facility on Monday.
Morgen Langner, the operations manager with JM Equestrian, said they started hearing loud noises at around 9 a.m.
At first, she said they thought it was ice sliding off the roof, but the noise got progressively worse throughout the day.
“It sounded like a clock ticking, or kindling,” she said.
At around 4:30 p.m., her colleague Ryan Davis went up into the attic area of the building to have a look.
“He came out and said, ‘You need to get out, it’s not good,'” she said.
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A quick decision was made to evacuate the building, and all of the animals were moved to a safe distance.
“We had the entire place empty….within eight minutes,” she said.
At around 4:48 p.m., just as the last person was exiting the building, the roof came crashing down.
Ken Thevenot, chief of the Okotoks Fire Department, confirmed to Global News they were called to the property for a structural collapse and there were no injuries to people or livestock.
The building is owned by the Saskatoon Farm and is about 12 years old, Langner said.
“This is a devastating blow to everybody,” she said, adding that they are looking for other facilities to house the animals.
There is no word yet as to the cause of the roof collapse, but Langner said she suspects it may have been snow build up.
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