Company Donates Community Storm Shelter At Gilwood Park In Monrovia

A Madison County park will now feature a community storm shelter.

Gilwood Park memorializes those lost on April 27th in the storms.

Now it will offer refuge for those in the neighborhood in the event of future storms.

Gilwood Park already means a lot to those who lost someone in Madison County.

But now it will mean just as much to those who fear losing more.

Durable Designs donated most of the materials and labor for installing a storm shelter.

They believe in their contribution.

Durable Designs Owner Lee Austin says, “I think it’s important for the memories of those who lost their lives and for the people who live around this area who don’t have a storm shelter.”

They’re rediscovering an old art.

Austin explains, “We had been in the storm shelter business years before.  About 15 years ago, I stopped putting them in.  We are licensed home builders, so we got very busy doing that.”

They’ve been preparing to get back into the storm shelter business since a single glimmer in a young eye on April 27th.

Austin tells the story, “My son looked at me and asked me ‘What are we going to do?’, and the look in his face when I told him ‘I don’t know.’  You know, because I’m always supposed to know what to do, and I didn’t know what to do that day.  After that, we put a shelter in of our own.  And I just want to be able to offer that to somebody else.  That if something like that ever does come through here again and their little boy asks them ‘What are we going to do?’ they’ll be able to come over here and be safe.”