7+ years later Malone Roofing and Koch Foods are still going strong! Over the years Mohamed has had many opportunities to test Malone’s capabilities whether it’s roof repair, preventative maintenance, leak investigations, roof replacements, and especially emergencies. In fact, back in 2019 a tornado ripped through Morton, Mississippi, and struck the Koch Foods Chicken Plant. Over the years Malone roofing has had extensive experience dealing with all types of natural disasters whether it’s thunderstorms, hail storms, hurricanes, or tornadoes…for Malone roofing, this was just like any other day so our teams were ready!

The Morton tornado struck the area the weekend of April 18, 2019. Koch Foods immediately contacted Malone Roofing to respond to substantial damage at the plant. A field team of 15 roofers was quickly dispatched and arrived on the scene to find an area that looked like a bomb had gone off. There were many rooftop units (RTU) that had been tossed across the roof, mangled structural decking, multiple membrane punctures, and large gashes in the roof. Within 6 or so hours our roofing crew was able to make temporary emergency repairs to get the building watertight.

The next step in the process was helping Koch Foods navigate the insurance claims process. We assisted Koch Foods with getting properly indemnified. Our team performed a thorough assessment of the plant’s roofs and we identified 12 sections with damage. Because of the varying degrees of damage between all the roof sections, Koch focused their energy on getting the 4 worst sections addressed first.  

Once all temp repairs and the insurance process were completed, we were now green-lighted to mobilize labor and materials for the project. For this section, we reroofed the area with a new modified bitumen roof, and for the blast area and freezer roofs, we went with a single-ply TPO roof. Because of the wind damaged roof deck, hot work equipment, and multiple trip hazards, this project required that our crews proceed with extreme caution and with almost 100% tie-off from start to finish. 

In the end, our team replaced over 10,000 square feet of structural metal decking while also replacing over 25,000 square feet of roofing that housed the picking and evisceration areas. All of this was completed while navigating an incredibly busy roof with tons of pipe penetrations, RTUs, exhaust fans, and other HVAC equipment on the roof. 

The next challenge was the successful completion of the blast area and freezer area roofs. For starters, when our crew did a few core cuts of the roof we found that it was 16 inches thick because there were already 2 roofs present that were saturated with no slope. The old roof’s poor design led to drainage issues which caused ponding water to happen and ultimately led to large sections of the roofing having wet insulation. We completely removed the old roof and installed a new TPO roof with flat and full tapered ISO insulation however due to challenges with access and all of the curbs and penetrations on the roof, our crew was only able to tear off and install about 200 - 300 square feet per day. Not to mention there were coordination efforts with loading and removing materials from the roof. As a company, this was by far one of our most challenging projects and through it all, we never let in one drop of water. The project was substantially completed in July 2020.  

According to Mohamed Basma, the reason they’ve stuck with Malone roofing is that they are always here for us. We can always rely on them to perform top-quality work in a safe and professional manner. The communication between our team is outstanding and we view Malone roofing as part of the Koch Foods team. Mohamed Basma said that “because of our consistently good experience with Malone roofing I would recommend and hire them again without hesitation.” 

When a tornado ripped through Morton, Mississippi in 2019 and struck the Koch Foods Chicken Plant, the Malone Roofing team was ready. The Morton tornado struck the weekend of April 18, 2019. Our team was immediately contacted to respond to substantial damage to the facility. A field crew of 15 roofers was dispatched and arrived to find units that had been ripped and rolled across the roof, pulled up decking, and had multiple holes in the roof. Within 6 hours our crew was able to make temporary emergency repairs to get the building watertight.

We began by assessing the existing condition of the 15-year-old roofing system, which was over 15 years old. Once finished with that project, we used our experience to help Koch Foods efficiently navigate their selection options for a new blast area roof as well as a freezer roof that needed replacement as well. Both roofs were prepped properly and re-roofed with a high-performance TPO product.

Koch Foods has been continuously expanding its operations over the years. This particular location had several structures that needed to be re-roofed and upgraded. The two primary structures were labeled as the “blast area” and the freezer area. The blast area contained metal roofing that was soaking wet, covered in low r-value insulation material, and could only be accessed through small openings. Our team removed the existing metal sheets and installed a higher-performance tapered ISO insulation system on top of what was left behind. Then we began removing all of the low r-value insulation material in both buildings so that those areas could be dried out before we place a new ISO insulation system on those walls prior to installing new exterior metal panels. The project was completed in July 2020.