A Parker Miracle

Editor's Note: This article and the accompanying photos were submitted by Parker University.

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On the evening of Oct. 20, 2019, a tornado directly hit Parker University, causing extensive damage. This tornado, one of 10 which tore through the Dallas / Fort Worth region that night, was one of the largest and most intense in the history of north Texas.

$30-$50 Million in Damages

The tornado originated near the Parker campus and cut through 16 miles of north Dallas and adjacent communities. While thankfully, no one at Parker was injured, the tornado essentially destroyed seven of its 14 buildings and left the rest damaged. The current estimate of the damage is $30-$50 million.

A Brave Decision: Move Forward

Given the choice between closing the university for several months or going to heroic efforts to salvage the remainder of the trimester for its 1,500 students, Parker's leadership committed to restoring normal operations within one week.

Knowing it would take superhuman efforts to save this trimester, Parker President William E. Morgan consulted the university's Board of Trustees, received their blessing, and then went to work. Roughly 350 contracted workers came to the campus and worked 12-hour days for a week. During that time, there was an accumulation of more than 25,000 man-hours of work completed to restore the university to normal operations.

Additionally, portable office spaces were brought to the campus to house Parker's administrative staff, broken windows were repaired, roof damage was patched, and class relocations were conducted. Pavilions were purchased to house the famed ParkerFit facility and food services.

Because of its agility during this crisis, Parker University was able to shift to online classes for a week, clean up a monumental volume of debris, build temporary office space on campus, acquire enough generators to provide power to the university, move student resources to new locations, and ensure that all student services (gym facilities, food services, study spaces, counseling, library services, access to financial aid, etc.) were restored to pre-tornado levels. Those who witnessed the transformation have called it miraculous.

During the time that Parker was scrambling to restore normal operations, other local businesses and schools called it quits or decided to close for the remainder of the school year.

Q&A With Dr. Morgan

Dr. Morgan took the time to provide more details on this shocking event and how Parker University is not just surviving, but thriving, day by day:

People are calling what happened here a miracle. What are your thoughts? Well, if this is not a miracle, it is pretty close to one. The tornado struck Parker when we had the least amount of people on campus. Striking on a Sunday evening, the library had closed not long before the tornado hit. So, we only had a small contingent of security professionals on campus.

The tornado was not forecast. It came right out of, forgive me, thin air.

With such significant damage to the campus, how can you expect to resume normal operations so quickly? Fortunately, most of the damage occurred to administrative spaces, rather than classrooms, labs or our clinics, so we only had to convert two multipurpose rooms into classrooms to serve our students. This is remarkable when you consider Parker's student body is 1,500 students.

It was amazing to see the path of the tornado. Taking out five of our buildings in a row, it then jumped over our Dallas clinic and state-of-the-art neuroscience center, Synapse Human Performance Center. Then it landed again and damaged our security offices, continuing-education department and a warehouse.  It spared the buildings we needed for normal operations.

It was almost as if our provost, Jayne Moschella, had anticipated this event as she had directed our instructors to create dual instructional tracts, allowing them to lecture online to students in case of some type of disruption. Temporary buildings that have already been installed will allow us to resume operations without interruption.

How was Parker able to get back on its feet so fast? We are accustomed to adapting and doing hard things. Some members of my team have told me that responding to this tornado was actually easier than putting on a Parker Seminar.

I agree on some accounts. For example, we already have experience in bringing our bookstore to our seminars, so relocating it on campus was almost routine. Our production crew was able to convert and modernize two multipurpose rooms into large classrooms with sophisticated audiovisual support.

Setting up rooms for 4,500 attendees at a Parker Seminar is undoubtedly a greater task than setting up a classroom for 240 students in a newly refurbished lecture room.

We frequently use temporary climate-controlled pavilions at seminars to accommodate crowds at our Dallas seminars, so we knew who to contact to build two of them for the relocation of our food services and ParkerFit gym.

Will insurance will cover the damages? Parker is well-insured, and I view this tornado as a blessing in disguise.  First, and most importantly, no one was injured. Operations were not impeded, and our clinics and Synapse survived; and both are still fully functional. Not only that, the damage from the tornado will speed up the time frame for the construction and modernization of our campus. We have been experiencing double-digit growth in the past few years, and we needed new buildings and more parking. I see this tornado as the means to accelerate our plans.

How did you get the campus operational so soon after such a catastrophic event? By making the decision immediately to open in one week, rather than taking our time, we were able to secure disaster recovery services straightaway. In the meantime, others are still in the assessment and discussion stage. We secured a couple of disaster relief companies (I didn't even know they existed beforehand), seven industrial generators, roof repair companies, movers, industrial dehumidifiers, arborists (to handle tree branches), temporary portable buildings, pavilions, food truck services, etc.

Delaying the decision to open would have ultimately led to closing our doors for the remainder of the year.

What about those who would like to give or to help out in some way? While our insurance company has been very responsive, and we expect that all of the repairs and rebuilding will be covered, we are raising funds to expand our rebuild to include a new outpatient chiropractic clinic, modernized research facilities, and also to enhance our student experience.  If you would like to donate, please do so at this site: https://www.parker.edu/donate/.

What advice would you give to chiropractors in the field, or even to other colleges, to prepare for such a disaster? The first lesson I learned through this process is to be well-insured. Do not skimp on insurance. Second, switch to a paperless office with all records kept in the cloud.  Then, make sure you have plenty of operational liquidity so you can respond to an emergency, especially if your insurance company is slow to respond. Finally, be decisive and move forward; fortune favors the brave.

Any final words you would like to share? Next year is Jim Parker's 100th birthday, and it is also the 125th anniversary of the discovery of chiropractic. We intend to celebrate these historic milestones in typical Parker style with a large Parker Dallas Homecoming. We will be able to showcase the most modern campus in chiropractic due to the rebuilding after this tornado.

Make plans to join us next October and please follow us online and on our social media pages (@ParkerUniversity) to watch our rebuilding efforts. We also plan to continue to chat with Dynamic Chiropractic on a regular basis. Thank you to all readers for your thoughts and efforts.