Despite record heat and poor air quality, construction companies are playing catch up with roofing projects in Lake Crystal and St. Peter due to the large April 13 hail storm.
In Lake Crystal, as of early July, 306 construction permits were issued, according to City Administrator Angela Grafstrom. And that doesn’t include many more which Grafstrom’s limited staff has even been able to enter into the city’s portfolio, calling the process “a frantic end of month” task.
Grafstrom said that compares to a total of 177 construction permits issued throughout all of 2025, a pretty normal year in Lake Crystal. With a total of 861 utility bills issued for both residential and commercial properties in the city, Grafstrom adds that before all the projects are filed and completed, it might total over half of all homes and businesses.
“We’ve been very, very busy with permitting,” Grafstrom said, noting just two city staff were available for the paperwork. Grafstrom’s nearing her fifth year in Lake Crystal and said she’s never seen anything like it.
The scene was similar in St. Peter, where a total of 515 commercial roofing permits were issued since the April 13 hail storm, according to city officials. Of that total, 498 were residential roofing permits while 17 were for commercial properties.
But like in Lake Crystal, residential property owners were hit early and often by dozens of construction companies immediately following the April 13 hail storm. Of those 515 permits issued in St. Peter, a total of 79 contractors began the long process of meeting homeowners, connecting with possible insurance claims, and then scheduling projects in efforts to catch up.
And what became evident in drives throughout St. Peter, many of the hundreds of construction signs planted on residential properties throughout the community, the majority were construction companies foreign to local residents.
St. Peter city officials added that 58 of those 79 roofing permits were from construction companies who were first-timers in the community, many of them arriving the day after the April 13 hail storm. One homeowner, who asked to not be identified because their insurance claim was not yet finalized, said he was inundated by door-to-door sales people, one company hitting his front door three times, all different faces with the same firm.
In Lake Crystal, administrator Grafstrom said stories from homeowners were similar. Companies from as far away as Texas and Oklahoma arrived in Lake Crystal, she added.
“We were inundated with vendors,” she said. “It’s been a lot for people to handle. And they (construction companies) were from everywhere.”
Weather reporting stations noted that Lake Crystal was in the direct impact zone within a Blue Earth County storm path. The compact size of the community, population 2,539, is located just 13 miles southwest of Mankato off Highway 60, prompted widespread hail damage.
Hail reports in St. Peter included “baseball-sized hail” of 2.75 inches, as well as thunderstorm winds of up to 60 mph. Some meteorologists noted that updrafts within the Lake Crystal “supercell” storm briefly topped 100 mph.
Among the largest commercial roofing projects in St. Peter was at Central Square Apartments in the heart of the city. Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership (SWMHP) is the asset management firm for the 55-unit complex, completed in 2005 years after the historic 1998 tornado,
Ann Benda, SWMHP director of property and asset management, said of the nonprofit agency’s several St. Peter properties, “Central Square was just one of those we couldn’t wait” and had to repair the damaged roof.
Benda said the agency went ahead without filing an insurance claim, due to a 2% deductible on the $3 million-plus apartment facility. Instead, SWMHP dipped into reserves to complete the project.
Still, Benda said four bids were secured due to the state and federal funding originally used to build Central Square Apartments, with Lakeville-based Glacier Companies receiving the contract.
In both Lake Crystal and St. Peter, many of the roofing crews included Latino workers. (No construction companies contacted responded to questions about the demographics of their crews.) The National Hispanic Construction Alliance estimates that 31% of the entire U.S. construction industry is Latino, including 67% of all new workers from 2018 to 2024.
But as recent immigration enforcement raids in the Bemidji area indicate, a Latino workforce is critical and controversial to the state’s construction industry. Yet, in a recent MPR News story, the National Roofing Contractors Association says it’s an essential element of the industry.
Pat Marcy, sales manager at St. Paul roofing supply dealer United Product Corporation, told MPR News that immigrant crews have “saved the industry, plain and simple.”