FMHS fireworks tent to reopen Friday morning

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BY PCC STAFF

FORT MADISON - After a gusty thunderstorm blew in Thursday afternoon at about 2:15 p.m., the Fort Madison high school football team found itself running for cover at Hy-Vee grocery due to wind damage suffered at the fireworks tent the team was manning.

Twelve-foot metal poles were bent by the strong winds causing the west side of the tent to fall to the ground and inventory on the west side was also damaged.

But with the help of the tent's owner, football players, coaches, parents, and volunteers, the tent is back up and running again with sales starting at 10 a.m.

Volunteers help hold up the tent after winds damaged the fireworks sales tent at the Hy-Vee parking lot Thursday afternoon. Courtesy photo.

"People just out here helping other people," said Matt Callahan, who was in the parking lot helping get the tent repaired Thursday afternoon. Callahan, an ISP correctional officer, who also volunteers with Riverfest on the security team, was helping coordinate repair and replenishment efforts with Riverfest organizer Charles Craft.

Craft left Des Moines where he works to drive to Missouri to pick up replenishments for inventory that had been damaged. Sales had been brisk prior to the damage and the back up inventory trailer did not have any remaining supplies.

Head Coach Tony Shiffman said he was working in the tent at the time it collapsed, but said the safety of the volunteers was his top priority

"I was just trying to hold up the tent and then it got so strong I just sent everyone into Hy-Vee for cover."

The team is working the tent because an arrangement was set up by Craft through the owner of Riverside Fireworks to donate a percentage of the total sales from the tent back to the Fort Madison athletic boosters to help pay for the costs of the new press box.

"This is just another example of people coming together in this community to get things done. Even those kids on that team see the value this project has in getting the new press box built and they're out there now helping put it all back together," Craft said from his phone Thursday afternoon.

Sales will continue from 10 a.m. to midnight daily until next Friday, July 6.

Head football coach Tony Shiffman holds a 16-foot replacement as other volunteers and members of the FMHS football team work to get get the fireworks tent in the Hy-Vee parking lot repaired after a storm went through Thursday afternoon. Photo by Chuck Vandenberg/PCC

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