The airdome used as a warehouse of Valmet Loimaa factory in the end of 1970´s and in the 1980´s, collapsed in the eve of Finnish Independence Day in 1986. Rauno Mäkelä, one of the former owners and long-term CEO of Vallox shared the story of the airdome.
It was the late 70´s. Valmet Loimaa factory had a great need to get more storage space. Valmet Rautpohja situated near the city of Jyväskylä had an old airdome which was already close to its end of life and was not needed in Rautpohja anymore. The airdome was transferred to Loimaa and the factory quickly gained more than 2500 m2 much needed storage space.
The storage hit the spot: the shelves were soon filled with finished products and components. The dispatch department of the factory worked several years in the airdome.
Then the eve of Finnish Independence Day in 1986 was dawned. The weather was stormy and wet sleet was raining heavily. My telephone rang at 5 o´clock in the morning. A couple of employees of the Valmet factory had headed to work early in the morning and they told me that the airdome had collapsed. I left quickly to the factory and the rescue service was alerted to help us.
Wet sleet was piling up on the roof of the airdome and it was also crowding into the transformer through the grille, which caused a short-circuit. The power was cut off from the entire factory. The backup supply system of the airdome did not start, and more and more heavy snow was piling on the roof. Eventually, the roof started sinking towards the shelves. The strong wind and heavy snow ruptured the roof and after that everything was chaotic. The airdome started to break uncontrollably, the items flew around, and it was too dangerous to go inside.
Information about the collapse and the need for help was quickly passed on to the staff and everybody that was able to come, hurried to help us. Also the rescue service was helping and preventing additional damages.
We started to move items into the factory. All corridors and empty spaces were filled up and used as a temporary storage space.
Eventually the storm relented and after the goods were safely inside – without personal injuries – we returned home soaking wet and tired. We had only a moment for the rest before it was time leave to the factory´s Christmas party on a cruise from Turku to Stockholm. As we already know, the plan was to inform the staff about the future of Vallo Oy, but at the end we just had fun and handed out beanies and scarfs that had the name “Vallo” embroidered. (Read the story “How Vallox became Vallox”)
After the party we faced a big job clearing space for production and finding storage space for the goods lying around the corridors. Warehouse space was found both in Loimaa and Oripää (a short distance away from the factory), and in a few weeks everything was tidied up and even the accounts were up to date.
After all, the collapse of the airdome had a positive impact: unnecessary stuff was no longer kept in the factory and we were forced to use the available space effectively. Money was also saved because the maintenance cost of the airdome had been huge.
