An Argyle equine therapy facility is seeking donations after accumulated ice from the recent winter storm collapsed multiple horse shelter roofs, exposing animals to freezing temperatures and debris.
New Hope Equine Assisted Therapy provides therapeutic horseback riding programs for children and adults with disabilities, as well as natural horsemanship programs for veterans and first responders.
The damage to the property was discovered on Wednesday when operations manager David Kershen spotted agitated horses from his hillside home.
“It was two days ago, I just looked out my window from my house up on the hill and I noticed that the horses were going a little crazy down here and the roof had collapsed,” Kershen said, Fox 4 KDFW reported.
No horses suffered injuries despite the dramatic collapse.
“They were actually just eating in their feed buckets along the front of the fence whenever the roof fell. They turned around, freaked out a little bit and then sort of went back to eating,” Kershen explained.
The nonprofit’s plea for help highlights how Texas facilities remain vulnerable to extreme winter weather five years after the devastating 2021 freeze. While the organization fortified pipes after that disaster, they hadn’t anticipated roofs buckling under ice weight.
The shelter should have lasted a decade, but failed after just a few years.
“It was a few years old,” Kershen said. “But it should have lasted 10 years, and it didn’t.”
Volunteers and neighbors mobilized on Wednesday with tractors and ladders to demolish collapsed sections and stabilize remaining structures. The cleanup crew even swept the area with magnets to remove stray nails and screws.
“We got tractors in here, and ladders, and we demoed everything and made the paddocks safe for the horses. We actually even went back through with magnets to make sure there weren’t any nails or screws left in there,” Kershen said.
A roofing specialist will assess the property next week. Kershen hopes reconstruction will be completed by spring, using stronger materials designed to withstand future ice storms.
“We’ll ensure this doesn’t happen again. We’ll take down any of the remaining structure built like this, and we’re just gonna build it back stronger and something that will stand up even more snow and ice in the future if that were to ever happen,” he said.
The organization launched a GoFundMe campaign to fund shelter rebuilding efforts.
