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Impact of heavy winter snow lingers

Clarissa Kell | Daily Press Rob and Vicky Cryderman look at the empty lot where one of their buildings once stood near U.S. 2 and 41 in Spalding Township Tuesday. Two buildings owned by Vicky and her family were a complete loss after the heavy snow caved in the roofs in March.

ESCANABA — With winter just around the corner, some of the individuals whose roofs were not able to support the heavy snow of last winter reflected on the clean-up and rebuilding that is still ongoing.

In the winter of 2018-19, heavy snow caused many roofs to succumb to the pressure and collapse. The destructive winter snow left many people with the choice of whether or not to rebuild the damaged buildings.

The roof of Wickert Floral’s Ludington Street store collapsed in March after heavy snow accumulation combined with warm weather and rain.

Owner of Wickert Floral Gordon Cashen said the collapse took place after two solid days of rain.

“Not only was the roof damaged, but a lot of water damage has been done to the building,” he said.

Within a couple days of the collapse, Wickert Floral moved to a new location at the Delta Plaza Mall.

Since moving to the mall, Wickert Floral moved into a bigger space there.

According to Cashen, insurance covered the cost of the roof, but not the damage within the building. Now he is left with a building he can’t afford to fix.

He explained there are avenues to get more funding for the repairs, however, owning his business and also working full-time takes up all of his time.

Cashen said he has been looking for someone to buy the building as is or to sell it cheaply after fixing the roof.

He said the roof of the building has yet to be fixed because he doesn’t want to invest $150,000 to fix the roof and have to tear it down in the end.

Two people are currently interested in the building, but Cashen said if no decision is made by the end of the month, he is more than likely going to tear down the building.

He added he has been keeping the city officials in the loop so they can find someone interested in the building, as it has historical meaning to the city with its theatre upstairs.

In Harris Township, the Jorasz Farm also felt the impact of the heavy snow.

Out of the 27 buildings on the farm, three collapsed over February and March. Two of those three buildings had cows inside.

John Jorasz, one of the two owners of the Jorasz Farm, said they were only able to re-build one of the buildings so far and it still isn’t completed.

He explained they began re-building the cattle barn at the main farm location in Harris Township as soon as the weather permitted in spring.

“We purchased some cattle to replace the ones killed,” Jorasz said. “We had to get the barn done for them to come.”

He added the cattle have been back in the barn since the middle of May.

The Joraszs haven’t had time to work on the other two barns that collapsed last winter.

Jorasz noted one of the barns has been cleaned up, but the other is still in a shambles from the collapse.

When asked about this coming winter, Jorasz said they’re going to be shoveling off roofs a lot sooner.

“We have 27 buildings to shovel, it takes a long time to shovel that many,” he said.

A family in Spalding Township also felt the wrath of Mother Nature last winter — Vicky Cryderman and her family lost two buildings in March due to the heavy snow accumulation.

Cryderman, who owns multiple rental units with her husband, said her daughters and herself ended up shoveling off around 11 buildings over the winter months.

The two buildings that collapsed were used for storage and were under-insured. One building had two vehicles that were damaged in the cave-in.

Cryderman said they couldn’t afford to fix the buildings, so both were torn down.

She explained the clean up took around five days for each building.

Rob Cryderman, Vicky’s husband, said they started cleaning up the debris left behind in April when the snow was nearly completely gone except for some snowbanks.

According to Vicky, there are no plans to rebuild, as there just isn’t enough money to do so.

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