The roof of a building caved in early Wednesday morning in a Government Hill neighborhood, the latest structure failure in a calendar year full of them in Anchorage. The collapse hit what appeared to be a commercial warehouse on North Post Road shortly before 6 a.m. Wednesday, according to an Anchorage Fire Department spokesperson. A sign in front of the building displays "Commercial Truck Service." No one was inside the building at the time, AFD officials said. The department said it was alerted of a "partial structural collapse" around the 2100 block of North Post Road. Municipal property records show that commercial warehouses make up the bulk of buildings in that area. With record-breaking snowfall hitting the city this winter, roofs have become strained under the weight of snow and ice that has built up on most buildings around town, and Wednesday's collapse was the 20th recorded in the city since last winter.  

Investigators are still working to get into a Philadelphia-area home as at least six members of a family remain unaccounted for after officers responding the prior afternoon to a report a child had been shot there were struck by gunfire and the home set ablaze, a district attorney said. Authorities "have reason to believe" a relative who shot at the officers from the East Lansdowne home is among as many as eight people unaccounted for, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in a Wednesday news conference and an interview with CNN affiliate KYW-TV. The work Thursday was deemed a "recovery effort," with nobody alive inside the "unstable" home where hot spots still burned, he told reporters. Detectives were methodically going through the crime scene with excavation experts and a drone.  

VIDEO: This year marks the 20th anniversary since Hurricane Charley wreaked havoc on parts of the Sunshine State. During the hurricane season of 2004, storms accounted for nearly $40 billion in damage collectively and killed nearly 100 people, according to the Florida Department of Health. The first storm to hit Florida that year was Tropical Storm Bonnie on Aug. 12, 2004. Bonnie struck the Florida Panhandle with sustained winds of 45 mph. Just one day later, Hurricane Charley made landfall in Charlotte County on Aug. 13, 2004. It was roughly a 30-hour period of rapid intensification as people living in Southwest Florida up to Polk County braced for severe impacts. Charley was a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of nearly 150 mph.  

PHOTOS: In Southern California's Rancho Mission Viejo (RMV), Fire Station 67 has been designed and constructed as a prefab, modular build—enabling faster completion and future reconfiguration. Designed by Seattle-based Wittman Estes, the 4,667-sf station was prefabricated offsite as 10 modules that were then assembled onsite. The offsite fabrication and rapid assembly led to a streamlined design, documentation, and permitting process. This approach allowed for parallel site development work in California and factory construction in Nevada, resulting in a construction timeline of six months. The modular system also allows for relocation and reconfiguration. The sturdy, durable steel modules can be easily transported and rearranged for possible future uses, such as an environmental learning center for RMV.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: Dennis Kirlin always knew that an office job wasn't for him. Growing up, the Wilmington Fire Department Battalion Chief watched his father and uncle fight fires in the city. His grandfather was also a Wilmington fireman, though he died when Kirlin was a tot. Each day, Kirlin said, was a new adventure for the men. While the job was often challenging and could be dangerous, "it wasn't mundane, it wasn't repetitious." "In a lot of professions, you can't wait to get to the weekend," Kirlin said. "But they were glad to go to work every day." Though Kirlin can't point to an exact moment he knew he wanted to be a firefighter, he believes it was his father and uncle's passion that drove him to join the department nearly five decades ago. As his service to the city comes to an end, he's "got no regrets."  

One of the problems that comes with living in rural areas is the lack of proper law enforcement or emergency response teams in the area. When a fire or crime breaks out, it can take some time before enforcement arrives on the scene in many cases. This is especially the case with fires, as a blaze can rip through houses and fields alike with ease — but as a new study shows, this is something that North Dakotans often do not have to worry about, as the state boasts an incredibly high number of fire departments per capita. In a recent study, home site FireCashBuyers utilized data from the U.S. Fire Administration to find the number of fire departments in each state. Here it was discovered that North Dakota boasts the highest ratio of departments to individuals in the entire country.