Well Hail!

Posted on by curioussteph

It was a normal Monday evening. We finished dinner, washed up, and were watching a little Antiques Road Show on PBS (we are very fancy at my house). Then bam! the wind picked up, there was a little rain, some thunder and then HAIL.  Big-ass hail. One, two, three inches in diameter, coming down fast and hard. Quite the ruckus.

Hitting hard and loud enough that despite my fascination, I move back from the windows. Ice balls skittering across the deck and sidewalks, piling up on the lawn. The furious part of the storm doesn’t last long, maybe 15 minutes.

Then discovery begins. The skylight upstairs that lights the area above the master bath sinks and closet. Broken. Its hailing inside! I’ve never had hail in my closet and bathroom before. Its odd as I’m mopping things up to hear all the voices from neighbors assessing their own damage. I don’t usually get voices coming through the roof.

broken skylight
The broken skylight

Looking around outside, the expected downed tree branches and shredded leaves litter the yard. I don’t check the garden too closely, I don’t want to know, and right now its not a priority.

What’s this on the deck? Oh, thats the shattered cover of the Solatube, which brings light to a dark upstairs hall. Yup, now water is leaking through it, and its light fixture. Better turn off the switch, and more mopping. I get a ladder and am heading up on the roof, hoping to cover the solatube opening. Placing my hand on a shingle, I feel a sting. A slow leak of red tells my I’ve cut my thumb. I look closely and realize that at least two solar panels are broken. Wet roof and broken glass, still raining lightly. No roof for me tonight.

A plastic kitchen garbage bag fits perfectly under the broken skylight. A little duct tape, and barring a major deluge, that area should be okay for now. More plastic overlain with towels on the floor, just in case. Can’t do much about the hall drip from the solatube, so we mop up as best we can, do the same garbage bag, towel gig, augmented with a container to catch the ongoing drips, and its good-enough for now.

Indoor damages attended to, BA and I head back out, checking in with neighbors. A number of shattered cars. I help one neighbor affix a tarp to cover his car from further rain, check in with another. They both had partial breaks of their skylights, but only one of the two layers.  I’m grateful our cars were garaged.

Back inside, I go online and file an incident report with my insurance company, might as well get in the queue. Online, the community facebook page is covered with photos of bigger than a golf-ball hail and many queries for repair people. Clearly, mine was not the only broken skylight and there are a lot of seriously messed up cars. We are all a bit shaken by what happened, and its good to see mutual support happening so quickly.

Grateful that the house is largely intact, and beginning to understand a fraction of what it might be like to be in a tornado or hurricane, we begin to unwind with a cup of tea, before a considerably later than usual bedtime. Tomorrow is soon enough for part two.

after the storm
And the Buddha sits through the storm.

 

Linked to Ragtag Daily Prompt: Shaken

25 thoughts on “Well Hail!”

  1. So sorry to hear this Steph – those hail stones look huge! Thankfully no one was hurt and I hope everything will get fixed soon. Sending lots of love 🤗💞 xxx

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  3. Sorry to hear about that nasty hail. We had mega hail a few years back. It’s good you contacted your insurance company quickly. It took almost two years for roofers in our area to get everything fixed.

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    1. Just got off the phone with my claims person, he’ll be out tomorrow. I was up on the roof this morning, and it looks like my hail resistant roof (put on 14 years ago after the last mega hail) held up well. Now about the skylight, the solatube and the 3 solar panels. . .

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  5. That was a crazy storm! So sorry about all your damage! We only had “almost” golf ball size hail, yours were bigger for sure! Roy lost a window and I have heard of lots of other damage. How is the garden today? Keep fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen again today…

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  8. Steph, We wish you good luck with your repairs! We are still messing around with our contractor with our hail repairs from almost a year ago! Have a new roof, a new air conditioner, new gutters and downspouts. Still waiting on a new hot tub cover! An’t it a bitch?

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    1. Yow, that’s a long wait, Bob. I talked with my solar guy and he will be out early next week and the insurance inspection is tomorrow. Hope your hot tob gets done soon!

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  12. Hi Steph, it’s highly unusual for a Solatube product to get damaged by hail. Do you know if it’s still under warranty? If so they will come in and install a new one for free. Just a thought.

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    1. Thanks, Beth. I don’t know on the warranty bit–the manufacturing bit on the fragment says it was manufactured 5 years ago, so it depends on the length of warranty. I’ll check their website. Thanks for the heads up!

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Published by curioussteph

June 2017: I started writing Curioussteph.com with this: By day, I'm a retired family physician turned body-oriented psychotherapist. I garden, travel, am owned by 2 elderly cats, figure skate and am training for my first triathlon. April 2020: Three years later, the two elderly cats have crossed the rainbow bridge, and we now have an 11 year old adoptee, Ziggy. I'm done with triathlon and skating for the time being, and I am still physically active, running, biking and walking. It's now the time of the coronavirus, which is affecting us all.