BP gas station roof collapses

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The roof over the pumps of a BP gas station in Bayard collapsed Monday afternoon, possibly due to high winds from storms rolling through the area.

The gas station is on Philips Highway, just north of Old St. Augustine Road.

No one was hurt.

Edwin Lopez, a cellphone antenna deliveryman from Orlando, said he was pumping gas into his truck when winds estimated at 40 mph or more blew the covering down.

"All of a sudden the wind started picking up, so I looked up and saw the roof going up and down," Lopez said. "So I ran. It almost got me. I got lucky, real lucky."

Lopez was the only person pumping gas at the time. He said he was going to buy a lottery ticket because of his luck.

"I heard a metal sound and the gas station roof had fallen off," said Brandon Robinson, who works at a nursery next door.

He said it only took a few seconds for the weather to peel the cover from its frame.

"The winds, they shook 100-year-old oak trees like I haven't seen in years," Robinson said. "And we ran outside, heard the high winds, and that's when I heard the gas station roof getting ripped off the top of there."

JEA reported a 62 mph wind gust at its Northside power plant about 2 p.m.

At the height of the storms' passage in the early afternoon hours, JEA showed nearly 6,000 outages in Jacksonville.