Family-owned Benbrook Lake Marina asks community for help repairing after tornado

When Ron Rogers first pulled up to the Benbrook Lake Marina after a tornado swept through the area, the damage didn’t look that bad. From the parking lot, he could see some of the slips had moved. There was some damage to the metal awnings. But it didn’t look devastating.

But as he walked down the hill to the boat slips, it became clear how extensive the damage done by the March 14 tornado was. The boat slips his family rents at their small marina, the main source of income for the business, were mostly devastated. Boats there were destroyed. The metal awning was warped and thrown around by the twister, the blue metal support beams were bent and twisted like they were made of plastic.

His son, Chandler Rogers, said he had the same experience.

“You get here and you look out over it and you think, ‘oh, this doesn’t look so bad,’“ Chanlder Rogers said. “Then you get down there and you’re like, ‘holy crap. How did this happen?’“

The marina, which he bought 16 years ago and at which his son and daughter work when they’re not at school, had lost most of the revenue that kept it afloat year after year.

But around 5:40 p.m. March 14, a tornado swept across the marina from west to east, lifting up and dropping the boats and their slips in a matter of seconds. Such a simple thing destroyed much of what keeps the family business alive.

Now, the family has turned to their community for help rebuilding.

Chandler Rogers set up a GoFundMe after talking to his father. They determined the repairs would cost in the neighborhood of $1.5 million, so Chandler Rogers set up the fundraiser with a simple message: If they can’t get help raising the money to make repairs, the nearly 70-year-old marina will go out of business.

That money will help the family not only repair the damage, but also bring the marina up to code. A lot of the structure, because it has been around for nearly 70 years, was grandfathered in with new building codes. Because of the damage done by the tornado, now they’ll have to bring the place up to modern building code if they want to effect repairs, Chandler Rogers said.

As of 7 p.m. Saturday, the effort had raised $421. But it’s also helped garner attention from people who want to help in other ways.

Chandler Rogers, who said he grew up at the Benbrook Lake Marina and has a lot of fond childhood memories there, said some community members have shown up to help with cleanup and others have offered to donate supplies to rebuild.

Employees and a couple of fans of the marina were out Saturday afternoon working to clear boats from the wreckage and move the debris and remains of the slips out. One row of boat slips survived the tornado. The rest are partially under the water that’s currently so low you can see the mud, and the family isn’t sure how they’re going to go about recovering or removing it.

Chandler, who said he is getting ready to join the Navy soon (in part because of all the time he spent on boats on Benbrook Lake growing up), set up the fundraiser to help his father keep the business he’s invested years of his life into.

Chandler Rogers said he knows the money his family is trying to raise is a lot and that not everybody who may want to donate has the means right now. He’s asking those people, like his family and friends who care about the marina but can’t contribute to the GoFundMe, to simply share it.

His family has also received some calls from community members asking how they can help in other ways.

“It’s pretty cool, the way people wanna help out,” Chandler Roger said. “It just kinda shows you what this place means to people. It’s not just special to us.”

Chandler Rogers said anybody who is willing to come out, put on some waders and help clean up will be more than welcome and appreciated, and if anybody has sheet metal or wood lying around they don’t have plans for, that could go a long way to helping the family cut costs of rebuilding.

Anybody who wants to donate to help keep the family business alive can go to www.gofundme.com/f/help-benbrook-lake-marina. If you’d like to help in another way, contact Chanlder Rogers at 817-658-0702 to find out what needs you might be able to help fill.

“This place isn’t just for us,” Chandler Rogers said. “This is a place where people in our community have been coming for years. Sometimes just one person who wants to go fishing alone, sometimes friends and sometimes families who just want to get out on the water together. The memories, the things the community loves about a family owned marina, that’s what we’re trying to save.”