CANTON – The roar of snow sliding down the main roof and landing on the porch roof nearly scared Doris Brown to death.

“It sounded like the whole of the front of the house fell,” she said Monday afternoon as she sat in her living room with her daughter, Freda Dyke.

The snow and ice didn’t damage the main house, but it wiped out Brown’s porch.

“I looked out there (at the porch) this morning. Those nails that hold the porch to the house were about two inches away,” she said showing the distance the nails were from the building with her thumb and forefinger.

The ranch home part way up Staples Hill Road was built by Brown and her husband, Sherman, now deceased, more than 50 years ago. It was an attempt to get away from the periodic rising waters on the flood plain where they previously lived.

And until Monday afternoon, nature hadn’t intruded.

Nine members of the Canton Fire Department responded to the roof collapse. Several stayed to finish removing the crashed-in porch, and to shovel off the snow and ice that accumulated on the porch’s deck.

Shane Gallant, one of the firefighters who helped, said the weight of the snow was just too much for the porch roof.

She called her daughter, who was at work when the porch roof collapsed. Dyke remained with her mother throughout the afternoon.

“They (the Canton firefighters) did a really good job,” Dyke said of cleaning up the porch debris.

Brown has insurance and expects to have the porch rebuilt.