South Central Kansas Storms Causing Damage
Spring is here and everything is greening up, the air smells fresh and all is renewed. Spring is also the time when the clouds start to roll in when just five minutes ago, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and now it’s pouring. Oh, the joy of living in tornado alley!
I must admit, I LOVE a good thunderstorm! Well if I’m inside. There is just something about the energy that is in the air with the lightning flashes and loud cracks of thunder, maybe I’m just weird.
To be a severe storm all that needs to happen is quarter sized HAIL. Pea sized hail doesn’t do that much damage, mainly just knocks leaves off trees, however BIG hail, quarter and up, is very destructive. I remember in 2013 we had just started cutting wheat, a storm blew in from the west and by the time we shut down equipment, left the field and pulled into the garage it was hailing so bad that we couldn’t even hear each other talk. That storm caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage all around our area. We had to replace every roof, it even put holes through the liner of our pool.
After the storm passed we were like, “what the hell?” Or better yet, “What the HAIL?” We know that insurance claims cause your insurance to go up so we wanted to make sure that we had enough damage, what luck, we did! I learned a lot from that experience and since this may happen to you, I’ll give you some tips on how to proceed after a hail storm.
The first thing to do is to call a reputable roofer and have them come out and look at your roof. Nathan Payne, owner of Whitetail Roofing, said that a roofer should, “assess the damage first to see if there is even enough to pay your deductible and have a claim.” If there is enough damage or the roof is totaled, then call the insurance agent and arrange a time for the adjuster to come out and have the roof there also.
If your insurance company gives you a discount for using “High Impact Shingles”, and pays the difference, then it may be worth it to use them, but if they don’t Nathan said that a house in the Midwest usually gets re-shingled about every 10 years because of a storm so just get regular shingles because there not going to last 30-50 years anyway around here.
As a homeowner there are so many things that we have to be educated on just to keep our house in good working order. Any little advise helps and always check out the professional you use and make sure they are in good standing with the BBB or ask for references and check out their work.