The Plain Dealer
Donna Iacoboni

A building on Cleveland's East Side that was being renovated collapsed yesterday, and Saturday's heavy rain may be to blame.

This May was the fifth-wettest May for Cleveland in the last 109 years, said National Weather Service meteorologist Walter Fitzgerald. Nearly 6.5 inches fell at Cleveland Hopkins Airport, where the service is based.

Saturday brought 1.66 inches that saturated the flat roof of an old pizza shop on Larchmere Boulevard, between East 127th and East 128th streets.

Three construction workers escaped moments before the former DiBella Pizza shop collapsed in a cloud of dust yesterday.

Around 2 p.m., the building spewed bricks and lumber into the street and surrounding pedestrian alleys.

No one was injured.

"Thank god the workers got out in time and it happened before school let out. It sounded like an earthquake," said Michelle DiVita, who runs the Larchmere Deli across the street.

Three men working for contractor Korfant & Mazzone Inc. heard temporary support beams creaking and fled, Joe Korfant said.

The building was to become Boulevard Blue, a restaurant and blues club that would have opened in July. Yesterday, Korfant couldn't predict when the restaurant would open.

"We're not sure what happened, but the heavy rain may have had something to do with it," he said.

The average rainfall in Northeast Ohio this spring - March, April, May - was about 11 inches, 4 inches shy of the record set in 1964, said climatologist Jon Burroughs of the Midwestern Regional Climate Center.

Farmers in Geauga and Medina counties got most crops planted in April.

"The heavy rain may slow the growth of those crops," said Les Ober, with the Geauga County Ohio State University agricultural office. "But, it's too soon to predict if May's rain will cause problems the farmers cannot overcome."

Last spring was the fifth wettest in Northeast Ohio, which has experienced a spate of soggy Mays.

"May 2000 and May 2002 are both in the top 10 wettest," said David Cashell, weather tracker for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.