Heavy snow followed by rain last week damaged homes around town.

Shori Heaton awoke on Sunday to find that her woodshed had collapsed under a wet snow load. Later that day, a slab of snow saturated with rain slid from her roof, tearing off her chimney.

“I had people shoveling my roof, but it just wasn’t enough,” Heaton said. “I had nowhere to put the snow.”

Heaton said she has about a cord of wood in the shed but will have to wait until the snow and ice thaws before she can fix the shed and access the wood.

Drone footage posted online over the weekend showed a collapsed roof at another home and a razed carport on a different property.

Haines received about two feet of snow between Jan. 8 and Jan. 11 on top of a base of over three feet. Then temperatures warmed, bringing rain and raising the risk of roof slides. Other parts of Southeast got six feet of snow during the Jan. 8-11 storm.

Severe weather prompted the governor to declare a disaster emergency in Haines, Skagway, Yakutat and Juneau. The declaration made available state public assistance funds, which cover repairs on municipal infrastructure but not private homes.

Yakutat and Juneau experienced the brunt of the storm, which caused power outages and significant structural damage.

Haines Borough Mayor Douglas Olerud said the state’s emergency declaration “was mainly due to conditions in Yakutat and Juneau, but they included Haines and Skagway…in case something came up, so all it would take would be a local disaster declaration for us to access funds and rebuilding.”

Before the disaster was declared, snow and ice, strong winds and a low tide combined to sink the harbor gangway.

The ramp was temporarily fixed but will need a permanent and potentially costly repair in the coming months. Borough manager Annette Kreitzer said public assistance funds can’t be used for that work because damage occurred before the declared disaster.

The borough will be eligible, however, for work done to clear fire hydrants around town, Kreitzer said.

Last December was the coldest since the National Weather Service began recording data in town two decades ago.

Haines’ average temperature in December was 16.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s 0.6 degrees lower than the average temperature of the next coldest December, which was in 2012, and more than 3 degrees lower than the third coldest December on record, in 2008.

Last month’s lowest temperature in town was -4 degrees, tying the December record set in 2007. The lowest temperature recorded in town over the last two decades was -12, observed in January of 2008.

In other weather-related news, many residents – in Haines and across the state – reported extremely loud noises and shaking windows and walls early in the morning on Jan. 16. The sonic booms were caused by a massive underwater volcano eruption 6,000 miles away – near the Pacific island nation of Tonga. There was a tsunami advisory for the Pacific coast of the U.S., but no major waves or damage was reported.

The National Weather Service issued another winter storm warning on Monday for heavy snow expected Wednesday. Temperatures are expected to rise again this weekend with rain in the forecast.