Less than a month after it was damaged by a tornado, TAMKO Building Products restarted the saturated felt line at its Tuscaloosa shingle plant on Wednesday, May 25, 2011.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Less than a month after it was damaged by a tornado, TAMKO Building Products restarted the saturated felt line at its Tuscaloosa shingle plant on Wednesday, May 25, 2011. Only days later, the Heritage asphalt shingle line and the strip roll roofing line also started again. All TAMKO Tuscaloosa production lines are now back up and running at full capacity.

TAMKO’s roofing shingle plant in Tuscaloosa was hit by an EF-4 tornado during the historic April 27 tornado outbreak. TAMKO employees and contractors worked in shifts sun up to sun down, seven days a week to remove more than 750,000 pounds of scrap metal, make repairs and get the lines back up and running.

“It’s remarkable that this facility could be up and running and producing shingles again only a month after it was hit by one of the most devastating tornadoes in this country’s history – it’s a testament to the quality of our employees and the people of Tuscaloosa,” said President and CEO David Humphreys. “Their positive attitudes, detailed organization and progress in getting the plant back up and running has been truly inspirational.”

The Tuscaloosa plant is currently producing the six most popular colors of TAMKO’s Heritage line of laminated asphalt shingles, as well as TAMKO’s commercial roll-roofing products, strip shingles and saturated felt. The Tuscaloosa plant will continue to serve customers in the south and southeast. As parts of the U.S. have been hit with one of the most damaging tornado seasons on record, the re-started Tuscaloosa plant will provide much-needed production capability to the many customers across the U.S. needing to repair their homes.

“I know that so many employees across our company were part of the effort to meet the needs of our customers generated by the storm that damaged our facility and others this spring,” said Tom Deloughery, general manager of TAMKO’s Tuscaloosa facility. “Thank you to all of our employees who rose to meet the challenge and to all of our customers who remained so loyal to us to during this time.”

Special thanks is due to Deloughery who moved employees to shelter before the storm so no employees were seriously injured despite the severity of the damage to the building. The tornado struck the southern portion of TAMKO’s Tuscaloosa plant destroying a warehouse, raw material storage areas and portions of the production buildings, loading docks and manufacturing offices. Some of the plant’s product displays and literature were found 45 miles away.