Hail of a storm

June 3, 2008 6:00 PM
Hail of a storm

New Album 6/5/08 7:25 PM

CLICK ON PICTURE TO SEE SOME CAR DAMAGE

I'm posting some pictures of cars that got damaged in the softball size hail we had this week. I didn't take the pictures, but collected them from the newspaper. I also included an article, if you're interested.
Right now, JM is dealing with a huge tornadic storm in KS. We are safe in St. Louis. However, the storms are coming by 9:00AM here, so we're going to try to get ahead of them.

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Article from the Mercury...


Severe storms that dropped softball-sized hail on west Manhattan Monday caused extensive damage to inventories at two area auto dealerships. Insurance companies expect the damage area-wide to be at least several million dollars.

The storm cut its most damaging swath from Ogden to the Riley County Law Enforcement Center, totaling vehicles and damaging homes. Briggs Supercenter on Skyway Drive lost about 100 vehicles — essentially its entire inventory — to the storm.

''The damage was extensive,'' said Scott Teenor, sales manager at Briggs. ''Every car was damaged. Every windshield, every piece of back glass was broken out. We had to bring in street sweepers to clean up the mess.''
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Teenor estimated the damage at more than $500,000.
hail
Some of the hail stones, like this one that fell in the south-central part of town, reached the size of tennis balls or even larger.

''That's on the low side, though,'' he said. ''It could climb much higher than that.''

Teenor said the hail was so destructive that several large pieces crashed through the metal roof of the sales building. Charlie Trapp, manager of Dick Edwards Hyundai, told a similar tale of destruction.

''I've got a lot full of totaled cars,'' he said. ''The whole lot was pretty well wiped out. The insurance people are here, and I'm guessing there's probably $3 to $4 million worth of damage.

Of 100 cars on the lot, only three were reported as undamaged. Those three were under cover.

''Right now we're just trying to see where we're at,'' Trapp said.

Other dealers closer to Manhattan fared better, reporting little or no damage to their inventories.

Auto dealers weren't the only ones to suffer.

Matthew Bea, location manager at Hertz Rent-A-Car at the Manhattan Regional Airport, said he lost his entire fleet of about 40 vehicles. He didn't offer an estimate for how much it would cost to replace the vehicles, but said every car at least lost its windshield.

''A few were destroyed,'' he said.

Ned Maniscalco, a spokesperson for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, said eight to nine cars had their windows broken out. Those cars were on their way to Wichita to be evaluated.

Area car and home owners also were hit hard, and have been flooding local insurance agents with claims.

Dan Myers, who runs a Farmers' Insurance agency with his wife, Molly, said he has been stuck behind his office phone since Monday morning.

''It started yesterday when the sirens went off,'' he said. ''The phone lines just lit up. The counter says we've taken 177 calls. It's not as intense today as it was yesterday, though.''

Myers said Farmers' is mobilizing its team of adjusters to come to Manhattan to evaluate auto and home damage.

''The homes in Random Woods seem to have been hit hardest,'' he said.

Brandon Cole of State Farm Insurance said the last two days ''have been crazy.''

''It's been relatively non-stop since the storm finished hitting everybody,'' he said.

Cole said he'd personally taken 50-60 calls so far, most of them auto claims. He said owners would have to bring their vehicles to a to-be-designated place where they would be evaluated in assembly-line fashion.

Cole also said he'd had fewer home claims, but said those ''could be the tip of the iceberg,'' and that it may take many homeowners some time before they realize their roofs have been damaged.

Farmers in the area also suffered crop damage, but no estimates to the extent of the damage were yet available.

Greg McClure, extension agriculture agent for Riley County, said he knew of some fields that were hailed out, but he hasn't had a chance to review the area for himself.

''I've talked to some people, and some soybean fields were knocked down ... near Ashland,'' he said. ''They'll probably have to replant. There's also some damage on Hunters Island. It's pretty well confined to small areas, but where it is, it's serious.''

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji7tqYvvFqU