For a second consecutive year, severe winds wreaked havoc in Whiteside County including Morrison, IL, in the early evening of Monday, June 22, 2015. Tree destruction was extensive in some areas, causing structural damage to some residences. Repairs and clean-up efforts sometimes took weeks.
One business at Northland Mall was drastically impacted: Dunham’s Sports, 2900 E. Lincolnway, Sterling, IL. Eight weeks after the storm destroyed the roof, on Saturday, August 15, the interior mall entrance remains closed, and the rear of the store is inaccessible.
An unconfirmed source, however, stated on Saturday, “They are going to open soon.” One can only imagine how much hard work has brought owners to this point. Visit Dunham’s Sports in the near future to congratulate the owners for staying in place to serve the public.
Looking back to early morning, Friday, June 26, demolition was begun four days after the storm. Robinette Demolition, Inc., out of Oakbrook Terrace, IL, hired local contractor Gene Ryan to remove the collapsed roof debris. It took 8.5 hours of slow, precision movements.
“Fifty percent of the far east wall was caved in,” stated Ryan “Ninety percent of the roof was flipped onto the next section of the store to the east. [He removed] three air conditioning units, the rubber top coating, regular steel roof trusses, and steel beams. No other roofs were damaged,” he noted.
RTS Crane, Inc., 23454 Emerson Road, Sterling, IL, is one of few crane operations with equipment large enough to raise the roof–or handle large-scale tree removal. This photograph illustrates the rear of Dunham’s Sports before Gene Ryan brought order to the chaos.
