Dexter’s city parks battle back from storm damage

DEXTER — Sunday’s rash of severe weather did extensive damage to homes and businesses in Dexter, including to the city’s Parks and Recreation facilities.

Jamie Rowe, Dexter’s parks and recreation director, said the storm caused “extensive damage” at East Park. She said dozens of trees were destroyed or damaged, while falling trees damaged the roof of one of the pavilions, one of the city’s well houses and also damaged some of the playground equipment in the park.

The storm also damaged Dexter High School’s baseball field at East Park.

“The scoreboard and first base fence line were damaged, as was the roof on the press box,” Rowe said. “Wind pushed large sets of bleachers into the backstop. Some of the team’s practice equipment was damaged. There were lots of limbs and other debris scattered across the field.”

Rowe said the sports complex fared “a little better” during the storm.

“We had some trees down, and all of the player benches were overturned,” Rowe said. “Some of the benches are bent and damaged.”

Games scheduled to be played in Dexter this week have been canceled, but out-of-town games have continued as scheduled.

“We do not have an alternate site for games, but we are optimistic that we can resume our local game schedule next week and can begin rescheduling those missed games,” Rowe said. “Along with the park department staff and city equipment, Cabral Tree Service is working with us to speed up cleanup.”

At the Dexter Aquatic Center, about 60 feet of the boundary fence that separates the pool from the park was destroyed, as was two of the large sun shade structures were destroyed.

And that was not all of the damage the storm caused, Rowe said.

“With no power, there was no way to run the pumps, so nothing was able to circulate for several days,” Rowe said. “This caused us to take a financial hit — not only from the loss of revenue on opening weekend, but also in the unexpected extra chemical costs incurred to prepare the pool for reopening when the power was restored.”

Other park locations in Dexter were damaged as well. Rowe said large tree fell at Sugar Plum Park, a neighborhood vest park, causing critical damage to its play equipment.

“It will be some time before this park is operational again,” Rowe said. “We also lost trees at West Park and Boon Park, though fortunately there was no damage to equipment or facilities at those parks.”

Despite all the damage Sunday’s storm caused, Rowe said no planned events have been canceled as of Wednesday evening and cleaning up the storm damage to all of the city’s parks is a priority.

“We intend to host our annual Grille it Up event at East Park on July 12 and 13 as scheduled,” Rowe said. “We are taking registrations now for car show entries, barbecue competition teams and other event vendors. We plan to have the park back in good shape by then.”