Hail Damage

My 9 month old Prius was caught in 3" - 4" hail today. My windshield is smashed and all the horizontal surfaces look like popped bubble wrap including the tops of the doors.

For those of you that saw the Mythbusters episode about the car with golf ball dimples, mine looks just like that. Perhaps I'll get 90 mpg from now on. Arrrrrggg!

A large number of houses in Oklahoma City have damage. My window screens were shredded but the roof looks good. All the leaves on all the trees for miles are shredded and on the ground.

My 87 year old Dad is having open heart surgery at 8am tomorrow so I'm out of pocket for a while but I'll post pics as soon as possible. I have to take care of Mom while he's down.

 

Thanks friends for all the kind words and prayers. My 87 year old (going on 60) Dad went in at 8am this morning and came out 2.5 hours later with a quadruple bypass. He only had 27% flow to his heart muscles going in to all of this but still managed to plant a 1 acre garden at home. It's 2:30 pm and they're still trying to get him stabilized so we can only see him for a minute at a time. The doctor is pleased with the outcome. He knows were there but can't talk as the tube is still in his throat.

All the insurance companies are swamped here. It was a major hail event especially after all the tornado damage from last week's storms.

Car pics will be coming. (i needed this super short Internet diversion to keep my own BP down while waiting around)

I'm off to the shower and then back to the ICU.

 

As promised, here are a few hail pics. It's hard to get the angles so you can see the dents. I have a claim number but still haven't heard from the insurance company. We had a major tornado event the week before this and another one yesterday. Mine's drivable so it's not a hot case. There are estimated 200,000 cars damaged in this area much less the houses, etc.

Dad got out of the ICU early this morning. For 87 he's pretty amazing. Three days after the 4 way bypass, and he's up walking 100 yards unassisted. Blows my mind. I hope I do 1/2 as well at his age.

1. Standing in front looking back across the top.


2. Front Hood. This pic doesn't do it justice.

3. Windshield hits and top view.



All the horizontal surfaces look like this front to back and the tops of all the doors.

 

I'm sorry for the delay in personal replies to everyone.

Thanks and I absolutely agree. It's just a car that can be replaced.

You guys have also had a lot of rough weather. We've been fortunate for the last couple of years so it's payback time.

Mom and dad live in a different city. I drove down Sunday to pick them up and bring them here the day before the surgery. They were in the car with me when we got caught in the hail storm. It pounded us for almost 20 minutes. I'd pulled in to somebody's front yard under some huge oak trees but the tornado's from the previous weekend had stripped a lot of leaves so they were not much help. We were in a very rural area.

Thank you Luis. I retired March 1st this year knowing these days would come. I was hoping later than sooner.

They did not stop or remove his heart to do the surgery. Simply amazing. Fortunately the car still has glass and I can utilize it. I guess this saves me time waxing it.

Thanks. The surgery gave me a different focus so it hasn't bothered me a lot because I haven't had much time to think about it. I choose to see the good . . .

Thank you. I'm interested to see how it turns our $ wise. I can't get anyone to call back yet. We have whole hotels booked by hoards of insurance agents from multiple insurance companies. It's going to take time.

 

Yeah, I would rather have avoided it but I had to get Dad to the city for surgery. i even drove 40 miles around the storm to avoid it but as severe storms do in the plains, it turned right and one edge got us. If we'd have been 2 minutes faster it would have missed us. After it stopped and we continued down the state highway, there was no hail 1/4 mile down the road. Oh well.

It was heavy enought to close Interstate 40 due to the depth of the ice. When we left Dad's house it was 78° and it dropped to 46° by the time the hail stopped. I drove another 20 miles before the temp was back in the 60's.

We've had whole flocks of birds killed by the hail. There are no rental cars available for 100 miles because of all the damaged cars.

I had an 1984 Mercury Cougar that was hit by 7 "softball" sized hail stones when that car was 6 months old. It did $3,700 in damage. You could set a coke can in the dents and almost not see the can. They went right through people's roofs. The stones looked like 20 melon balls all squeezed together. I have not seen that again until this year so it does not occur frequently. it's usually pea sized stuff. These thunder storms we're 80,000 footers and the hails just keeps recycling until it gets too heavy to recycle and then look out.

 

Thanks! It looks like Dad may go home sometime Saturday. Today is 4 days after his quad bypass and he's walking about 1/4 mile five times a day inside the hospital. Simply amazing. He's 87 and the nurses are joking that he could kick their 40 year old surgery patient's butts. I just smile real big. (He probably could) He's my best buddy next to my wife.

Most of those critical care nurses are REALLY hot so i sort of hate to leave.