The Insurance Council of Texas says the hail storm that pelted San Antonio earlier this month is the costliest one to ever hit Texas.
The San Antonio hail was so severe it crashed through the skylights of a grocery store. In Bexar County it caused $1.36 billion in damages across the area.
Mark Hanna, spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas says hail storms rarely cause major damage. “You can look at last year and we had hail storms that covered the entire state in April and May and not one really hit a populated area causing devastation,” he says.
But in contrast, this year the damage stretched across Texas. “We had a devastating hail storm March 16 in Ft. Worth/Arlington, March 23 in Plano, April 11 in Wiley, and your April 12 storm in San Antonio,” Hanna adds.
The heaviest hail on April 12 hit over northwest San Antonio and the Northeast Side. Hailstones reached up to 4-1/2 inches in diameter. More than 110,000 vehicles received damage and thousands of homes did as well. Hanna says average car damage can range between $5,000-$7,000.
“Home or residential property loss are often $10,000. There’s often times through that roofs are a lot more than that.
Auto and glass repair shops have pushed appointments back for weeks or even months. Until now, Texas’ most damaging hail storm hit in 1995 causing 1.1 billion dollars in Fort Worth.
