Norman businesses begin recovery from hail storm

May 2 - Local business owners embark on a recovery process that can take months after a severe thunderstorm on Norman Wednesday dropped baseball-sized hail, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Winds above 70 MPH and hail the size of baseballs hit Norman just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday, causing damage to cars, buildings and windows. Now entrepreneurs are looking at insurance claims and assessing damage after one of the more costly storms in the city's history.

Rebecca Bean, owner of STASH on Main Street, said she got to her store and found six broken windows.

"We're pretty lucky that it wasn't worse," said Bean. "We have been spared floods and injuries, and all of our goods have been spared."

STASH was closed all day on Thursday while the outside windows were worked on and glass and ceilings were removed.

In an AccuWeather report, senior vice president and chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter said while tornadoes get more coverage, hailstorms cause the greatest damage compared to any other type of severe storm that leads to insurance claims.

Porter said the April 28 storm hit three major metropolitan areas in Ft. Worth, San Antonio and Norman slightly exceeded $ 1 billion in damages.

"The total damage and economic loss caused by the hailstorms on Wednesday night is expected to be about $ 3.5 billion," Porter said in the report.

Jonathan Fowler, president of Fowler Holding Company, said he sustained significant damage at his dealerships. As soon as the storm went through Norman, he investigated the damage on the properties, he said.

"The Toyota store may have done a little better in terms of damage, but I don't know I would say it was better - everything was bad from my point of view," said Fowler. "This is one of the worst damage I've seen in my tenure and career."

Fowler said the end of his week is working with manufacturers and insurance companies to make sure his dealers have the inventory they need to sell.

"Cars are on sale right now, so we had camera crews taking some footage so we could make sure we could make them available to customers," said Fowler.

Rebekah Collins, broker at Aria Real Estate, said several commercial buildings the company manages have severely damaged windows, skylights, roofs, gutters and lights.

On the residential side, Collins said homes Aria manages and homes owned by employees and agents have also suffered significant damage.

"" was a crazy day, "said Collins.

Collins said she and her team were busy soliciting vendors' quotes and timeframes for repairs on behalf of commercial property owners.

She said she is in the process of working with non-governmental residential property owners to facilitate bids, offers and filings with insurance companies.

At a time when homes are in high demand for both buy and rent, Collins says weather events like this make the process of renting, building and selling difficult.

"When you're under contract and you've done your inspections This comes through, now you need to let your inspector go back out and re-examine the roof for damage and make sure the property is in order, "said Collins.

According to Collins, history can show that such events can add significantly to the time frame in preparing a property for rent or sale.

"Roofers and contractors plan, prepare, and work well with brokers, property managers, and all of us in the real estate industry to help us get where we need to be, so customers can make and do insurance claims what they need to do, "said Collins.

Collins said while builders and roofers know how to work efficiently, the process of fully recovering from the storm will be slow. She had a seller reached on Thursday to tell her that windows and other building materials had already been reordered, she said.

"" have been slow here due to demand, and now it's going to take a lot longer, "said Collins.

Jeff Elkins covers business, life, and community stories for The Transcript. Reach him below or at @ JeffElkins12 on Twitter.

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