Tornado Restoration Advances

While on-campus classes and activities ceased in mid-March, crews have been hard at work restoring the buildings at St. Mark’s following last year’s tornado. The storm on the evening of October 20, 2019, completely destroyed Hicks Gym, which was eventually demolished, and damaged the roofs, windows, and brick facades of many other buildings. Since then, campus has turned into a construction site, as crews work to repair the damage. When the shelter-in-place order is lifted and St. Mark’s officially reopens, community members will find campus slowly returning to normal.

 

"While campus closure has been difficult for our school community, we’ve made significant progress on tornado recovery efforts across the campus,” said David W. Dini, Eugene McDermott Headmaster. "We are incredibly fortunate to have great partners to help us navigate a very complex recovery project, including BECK, Texas Roof Management, RLG Engineers, and Lake Wilcoxson Landscape. I also want to acknowledge our facilities team at St. Mark's. They have had their hands full this year, yet they have responded with thoughtfulness, determination, and intelligence.”

 

In the past few weeks, extraordinary progress has been made across campus, including:

 

 

As progress is made, St. Mark’s is also working closely with its partners to prioritize the health and wellness of everyone on campus. This includes regular temperature checks of all workers, handwashing stations and sanitizer, and six-foot distancing. Additionally, BECK has implemented “hyper-sanitation” protocols and added resources that go beyond the minimum industry standards enforced by Dallas County.

 

With campus closed throughout the summer, crews will soon move on to replacing the roofs on the Fojtasek Family Lower School and the McDermott-Green Science Center as well as repairing the roofs of Centennial Hall and the Great Hall. Currently, all work is scheduled to be completed before the start of the 2020–2021 school year.