Last June in Calgary there was a hailstorm that cost 1.2 billion in insurable damages. That of course doesn’t count the damages incurred that were not insured or just the out of pocket monies spent by the home and business owners.
This happened in an area of the city that could least afford out of pocket expenses. A large portion of the people living in this area actually work for a living. They are the ones that get paid minimum wage, but as we found during Coronavirus times they were and are the most indispensable workers. They can not for the most part work from home but had to go out daily to stock shelves, pick our groceries, deliver our meals, clean the hospitals and quite literally keep the country running. They got little thanks and still get little thanks, but t they were not asking to be thanked.
That hailstorm hit the N.E. very hard. Louise and I drove thru the area that was most afflicted a few days later and there was devastation everywhere. Cars looked like golf balls, covered in dimples, windows in entire neighbourhoods were smashed, the vinyl siding that most of the homes have was shredded and anything breakable was broken. In any other area of the city the hailstorm would have been declared a natural disaster and disaster relief would have been paid by the different levels of government. Most of these people were left waiting on insurance companies and once the insurance companies agreed there was damage, quotes from home repair companies had to be acquired.
Of course there weren’t enough companies to do the work so out of province workers came in. Most of these were reputable firms, but there were more than a few con artists that took money and did poor work or none at all. I guess this is the way of the world.
We live in the N.E. as well, but hailstorms can devastate one area and just two or three streets over just a heavy rain fell. We were lucky!
Last week conditions were ripe for more hail to come and those people that were hit last year went out and covered their cars with comforters and tarps trying to mitigate the damage. Luckily nothing as serious as the storm last year happened, but as long as Calgary gets plus thirty temperatures and unstable winds out of BC, it is a crap game.
Last week we did have hail at our house and some damage. Lucky for us it was only the Kale plant that got shredded. If that is the result of hail falling on our property, I say bring on the hail!
