Riverside Cemetery in Marshalltown has a hard financial road ahead.

The damage caused by the Aug. 10 derecho has created a $900,000 bill in tree removal alone.

Riverside Cemetery General Manager Dorie Tammen said insurance will cover almost none of that cost.

“They don’t cover tree removal,” she said.

Top Notch Tree Service of Marshalltown has been providing the tree removal service. However, work will have to cease until the business can get paid.

“They will quit after the cemetery is safe, after they get all of the dangling branches out,” she said.

Top Notch owner Jeremy Adkins and his crew have devoted every single day since the derecho to cleaning up Riverside.

“I have five notebooks full of jobs waiting for us,” he said.

Plus, Adkins lost the Top Notch building and fence in the derecho and has yet to rebuild his property. He and his crew have been working 13-hour days, Monday through Sunday, at the cemetery.

If Riverside can obtain the funds to pay for Top Notch’s services to this point, then more work can be done, such as stump removal or grinding.

“I have a lot invested here right now,” Adkins said.

Road and monument cost

Tree removal is not the only financial challenge Riverside is facing. Many trees fell on monuments, toppling them over or breaking them. Some monuments were pushed over by the strong derecho winds.

“We will have to go through section by section and find them all,” Tammen said.

Repair or replacement of the monuments is not going to be cheap. Monuments are owned by the families of the deceased, but Tammen said many of the ones that were damaged have no family left.

“We will reset the ones that we can, but we need to figure out how to get some repaired,” she said.

Monuments requiring serious repair will have to get the work of professional monument companies.

“Those are beyond our skills,” Tammen said. “Insurance does not cover those, either.”

Yet another cost is the wear and tear the roads through Riverside have received. There have been semis, cranes, payloaders, dump trucks, tractors and more driving through multiple times per day.

“Our roads were not in the best condition before the derecho,” Tammen said. “When I started here in 2013, I got a price quote on the cost of redoing the roads and it was $370,000. I’m sure it has gone up since then. I am talking to the insurance company about that but I don’t know if they will cover wear and tear damage from the clean-up.”

In an effort to get the necessary funding, a GoFundMe page has been created and Riverside will continue accepting donations, since it is a non-profit cemetery.

“With GoFundMe and checks coming in, we have raised between $6,000 to $8,000,” Tammen said.

She said she will begin sending letters to some of the larger Marshalltown businesses, asking for donations to help pay for the damage.

“We get no funding from the city, the county, the state or the federal governments,” Tammen said. “We live on what we make by selling spaces, burials, monuments and flowers.”

Keep out

What makes the job even more challenging are the number of people who disregard the “Cemetery Closed” signs and go onto the property. Not only could they get injured by a falling limb, but Top Notch has a lot of large equipment moving on the grounds.

With the cemetery being 100 acres, Top Notch has to track down the people who are going into the closed property and get them to leave. Adkins said one person drove a vehicle under a piece of equipment he was operating while he was moving fallen debris and tree trunks.

According to Tammen, the people are coming onto the property to visit dead loved ones, check on monuments, walk on the roads or feed the birds on the pond.

“We have had a gatekeeper every day, but people are walking in over the downed fences,” she said. “Top Notch has to take time to track them down because they are worried about liability. People have to stay out.”

DONATE:

• Donations to Riverside Cemetery can be made at the GoFundMe site, https://www.gofundme.com/f/trees-for-riverside?fbclid=IwAR0yJlugomOf63V3kpfBb89QpBfzy1Duh3D5-6vft37QhVh6uxsfu4I1rgo

• Donations can also be sent to Riverside Cemetery, 611 N. Center St., Marshalltown, IA, 50158.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.