ASHTABULA — Portions of the River Marine Supply Co. and Fish Cleaning Station are submerged in the Ashtabula River after a major collapse on the property.

What started out as a crack in the concrete the size of a hair, rapidly escalated into a disaster of dynamic proportions within a matter of days.

“Every second you stand here something else falls,” said owner Al Carano.

The property itself has been standing for more than 100 years and was the former home of Maxwell Industry Steel Co. The bait shop was built on the property in the mid 1980s.

Sheriff William Johnson

owned the shop for a little more than 19 years before selling it to Carano two years ago. Johnson is still a partial owner of the property.

Several docks, used by charter fishing boats, are now under water. The shop also hosted a fuel station and a fish cleaning station as well as bait, tackle and supply sales, Carano said.

“This is like a historical fish-cleaning facility on the water,” he said. “The boats could drive right up. You don’t see many like this.”

Carano said the crack appeared about six days ago and Friday the entire front porch of the building as well as the docks dropped into the river. By Saturday, the crack, which is now several feet wide is forcing most of the concrete into the river as well.

Saturday morning, the concrete slab, which is estimated to be about 10 to 12-feet deep, was at about a 45 degree angle. Carano said he can’t even begin to estimate the cost of damages.

“I don’t think I’m done,” he said. “I think my building is going next.”

Johnson said he estimates by today, the rest of the building’s awning and possibly the building will be swallowed by the Ashtabula River.

“Now I know how people feel when they have those mudslides and lose multi-million dollar homes,” Johnson said. “It’s a helpless feeling. There’s really nothing you can do until it’s finished doing what it’s doing.”

Carano said he is not sure what caused the collapse but immediately had the fuel tanks drained when he noticed the concrete starting to crack.

“There are a lot of factors that could have caused this,” he said. “Something caused this to happen so rapidly. This was caused by man, it was not an act of nature. For this to happen in six days it was definitely not an act of God.”