Tim Powell standing in front of a root ball close to the Cravo house
Timothy S. Powell, the owner of Powell’s Greenhouses account of what happened:
“As I ran for my greenhouse operation the rains fell as hard as the wind blew. The A-Frame Cravo House was completely full of plant material with the roof in the open position. The rain made the tipping bucket signal to the Micro Grow that the roof should close completely. By the time I arrived the wind was in excess of 85 mph blowing out of the west and the roof was closing from east to west. Therefore, the roof was closing directly into the path of the wind. It takes 2 minutes and 12 seconds for the roof to go from open to closed. It felt like an eternity. I was concerned that as the roof closed there would be no place for the wind to go and it would be trapped inside the house and either blow the roof covering off or push out the east gable end wall.
Well, none of that occurred, the roof fully closed and the entire structure remained intact with zero damage. My fellow greenhouse friends called to see how we made out and when I said that there was no damage to the Cravo House they could not believe it as they had attempted to reach our area, and could not due to the fact that every road to our place was closed due to the trees and power lines being down across the roads. We were without electricity for 5 days; the longest amount of time that I have had to use our generator since I have been here. Since we built the Cravo in 1996 I have been more than pleased with the structure and its performance; this storm simply took my appreciation of the strength of the greenhouse to a new level”
The photos below show the 20-year old Cravo house during a visit 3 months after the storm.
For more information
Cravo Equipment Ltd.
T: (1) 519-759-8226
F: (1) 519-752-0082