Weathering the Storm: St. Mark’s School of Texas

On October 20, 2019, an F3 Tornado ripped through much of North Dallas causing widespread and severe damage. Entire buildings were destroyed, and what wasn’t totally destroyed was severely damaged by high winds and flying debris. St. Mark’s School of Texas, a private boy’s school located on Preston Road, was located directly in the path of the tornado. The campus suffered very severe damage with all 11 buildings on campus being damaged in some way. The gymnasium and attached locker room facility received the brunt of the hit; the building was essentially leveled. Seven of the roofs on the St. Marks Campus were declared totaled by the tornado after the insurance claim was settled. Additionally, the McDermott Green building was determined to have been severely damaged by hail in prior years and the reroof of that building was added to the project.

St. Mark’s faced a very serious problem—with heavy rains in the forecast later that week, the damaged roofs needed to be repaired quickly to avoid further interior damage due to leaks.

Texas Roof Management was on the scene hours after the sky cleared, before the sun had even risen the next day. Over the next 4 days, Texas Roof Management crews worked to ensure that the compromised St. Mark’s campus would remain safe and watertight through the coming storms. Ultimately, our emergency repairs were successful. Despite the damaged state of the old roofing systems, additional water intrusion was not a serious problem.

By late December, the insurance claims had been settled. The Beck Group had been contracted to manage the restoration of the campus and Texas Roof Management was chosen to completely reroof the destroyed roofing systems.

Most of the St. Mark’s School of Texas campus was covered in beautiful copper standing seam roofs. Our crews removed the existing roofing systems down to the decking, installed new insulation and coverboards, and covered most of the assemblies with new Petersen PacClad copper standing seam roofs. At the end of the project, our crews had installed over 270,000 square feet of new copper roofing, as well as an additional 11,050 square feet of Siplast 2 ply modified bitumen membrane.

One of the biggest challenges on these projects was determining the new assembly for each damaged building. With so much of the waterproofing aspect of the roofing assemblies damaged or outright destroyed, the insulation and decking underneath was compromised. Texas Roof Management, The Beck Group, and DryTec went through each building on a case-by-case basis to determine the best design for the new assemblies.

For example, the Tectum roof deck on the Dechard Building required a full replacement after being destroyed by moisture on the night of the tornado. After a forensic analysis of the damaged roof assembly, we found that the spans supporting the old roof deck were unusually spaced and the building was not a good candidate for most typical decking systems. Texas Roof Management, with guidance from DryTec Moisture Technology Consultants, re-decked the building with a 20 GA galvanized metal deck and 22 GA acoustical metal before installing the rest of the roofing assembly.

Another challenge on the St. Mark’s projects revolved around the logistical planning necessary to complete a project of this size. Each of the buildings needed to be re-roofed as soon as possible to allow the school to function normally and to prevent additional damage from water intrusion. To meet this challenge, we utilized 4 separate roofing crews. Each crew worked on different buildings simultaneously to ensure that the project wouldn’t drag on longer than absolutely necessary. We ensured that each crew was supervised by an OSHA trained foreman, as well as our experienced superintendents and, ultimately, our Director of Operations and Project Manager. Much of our work at St. Mark’s took place on steep slope roofs without parapet walls, so our crewmembers were tied off at all times on the roof.

Within a year, the St. Mark’s campus was covered with new shining copper roofs. Petersen awarded St. Mark’s with a 20 Year Watertight Warranty for each of the copper roofs. Siplast awarded a 20 Year NDL Warranties for the roofs over the Cafeteria, Green Library, and Decherd building. A Texas Roof Management Workmanship Warranty was also supplied.

We at Texas Roof Management are grateful to have had the opportunity to work for St. Mark’s School of Texas. We’re proud of the beautiful roofs we installed, and thankful to each of our crew members who worked tirelessly and diligently to make the project such a success.

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about our company, feel free to call us at (972)-272-7663.