Soergels Greenhouse Aftermath by noah petronic

February 7, 2010, the national weather service predicted that Pittsburgh, Pa and surrounding areas were to receive 8-10 inches of snow. The morning of February 8 came, and 8-10 inches of snow had not fallen, in fact it was 24 inches of snow that had fallen.

Randy Soergel, owner of Soergels Greenhouses, had gone to bed the night of February 7 not really worried about the amount of snow fall that had been predicted to fall, and his greenhouses, that would soon be full of seasonal annual flowers for his upcoming spring season. When he woke in the morning he had seen outside that the amount of snow that the local weather man had predicted was a little off, off by about A FOOT AND A HALF. Hurrying to check on the conditions of his greenhouse, which he had not turned the heaters on because they are able to withstand the amount of snow predicted, he had to travel through his back yard up through the strawberry and apple fields, because the main street of Franklin Park, Pa, Brandt school Road, had been closed down due to the amount of snow, which had made it impossible to travel on. Seeing the amount of snow now on the ground he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach.

When finally making it the eighth of a mile to his greenhouses, he saw that the big greenhouse that was used to house and start all the flats and baskets of annuals for the coming season had collapsed at some point during the night due to the weight and accumulation of snow. As he looked across the driveway at the three covered smaller greenhouses that are used to house and grow plants, he was shocked to see that all three of those greenhouses had also collapsed under the snow.

The real kicker to this sad story of one of the few standing family owned greenhouses left in the area, is that due to the fact that the heaters to the greenhouses where not set at 40 degrees, the insurance company that they were covered by would not cover the cost to rebuild the greenhouses.

When asked what Randy was going to do with the upcoming growing season he explained that Soergels will still have all the same supplies of plant material that they have had in the past, the only thing is that they will not be Soergels grown. He will be getting plant material from other local greenhouses that he knows very well, and is confident in, he is just going to have to change his game plan a little from years past, and switch from focusing on growing to retailing. As for rebuilding the greenhouses, he does not have any big plans to rebuild, perhaps one of the smaller ones by the end of the season, but maybe what he needs to keep is focus on is the reatil.