As part of your building maintenance plan, Needham DBS recommends developing a Severe Snow Plan to limit the impacts on your structure. The plan should contain a list of contacts: owner, building manager, local testing agencies, building engineer of record, local consulting engineers. It's a good idea to establish an "on call" local testing agency and local engineer since travel from other regions may be difficult during an event. The plan should list the design snow load for the building, the snow density used, the depth of the balanced snow load and what drift regions were included in the design with magnitude of load.
Determine the Potential for Loss based on the following high risk factors: Large Open Space Roof, Flat or Low Slope Roof, Parapet Projections, Tower Projections, Internal Roof Drains. Any of these increase risk of failure during a severe event, a combination of these increases the risk further.
