Lubbock businesses recovering from roof damage caused by winter storm

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LUBBOCK COUNTY, TX (KCBD) - Lubbock businesses are still trying to recover from property damage and sales losses suffered in this winter storm.

Most had to close for several days and others suffered physical damage.

Rojo Industrial is a laminate distributor on 50th and the West Loop. They got hit hard.

Erin Love is a mother of three who just bought the company last spring.

She said when her employee called her Monday, she was totally unprepared for the bad news that could cost her $300,000.

"He had just showed up and found out that the roof had collapsed and some of the walls were going in," she said. "It's just one of those things where you don't know how to respond."

She said they'll have to wait until next week for the adjustors but it looks like the entire structure is totaled.

"It goes about 60 percent across the building," she said, "To where the roof is almost on the ground on the inside."

The building was mainly empty but the roof collapsed on the storage heater.

"They said the pitch probably wasn't enough to hold the amount of snow and ice that was on it," she said, "Once it started melting, that's when it really started doing a lot of the damage because of the water sitting on it."

They had to close Monday and Tuesday because of road conditions and she says sales are down by 70 percent.

"You just kind of deal with it when it gets here, but it would sure be nice to have it cleared off a lot sooner than four days after the storm hits," she said. "I think the other businesses feel the same that when it keeps your customers not coming through the door for a couple of days, that affects your sales. Weather or no weather we hope that our taxes will get it cleared off even if they don't want to get extra snow plows."

And that's not the only way the storm has affected the company.

"With trying to get vans and trucks out, there's no possible way to get out of the city. If you can get out of the city you can go 70 or 75 on all the highways because those are clear, but in the city there's no way to get out of our business to get out of the front doors without getting stuck, so it has affected us being able to get our shipments in or out."

While they weren't storing much in there this past week, they will need that building soon and it looks like it'll be at least three months before they can get it replaced.