Insurance claims after recent hail storm total $352 million
By Kody Fisher Published: August 23, 2016, 9:51 pm
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo — We finally learned the total cost of damages from the massive hail storm in late July.
Chances are you remember this one – with golf and tennis ball-sized hail pelting our area.
Over 84,000 insurance claims totaled a whopping $352 million, making it the fourth most expensive hail storm in the state’s history.
It’s never fun to have to deal with filing insurance claims, especially when there are so many other people doing it at the same time.
That just speaks to how big this storm actually was.
“I’ve heard that this is like the hundred year hail storm,” said homeowner and claim filer Dave Miller.
“I’ve been here for 17 years and I’ve never seen one like this,” said State Farm Agent Scott Richter.
It took some people until the next day to fully understand how much damage there was.
“All the trees were strafed, lot of damage, lot of limbs down, lot of shredded screens, debris all over the place. So you kinda just pick and choose where you want to look at for a visual,” said Miller.
He’s not alone – there were a lot of other people also filing claims.
“Mostly car claims, homeowner claims. Roofing, gutters, paint, siding, windows broken. It’s very rare that a hail storms breaks out car windows and this was sufficient enough to do that,” said Richter.
If you’re someone who has to replace your roof because of this hail damage, or if you’re somebody who just doesn’t want that type of damage to happen to you, they suggest putting a hail resistant shingle on your roof.
“They drop a two-inch steel ball 20-feet two times in the same spot on the shingle. Once it survives that test it meets the class four standard,” said Richter.
Getting a class four roof installed could save you close to 25 percent on your insurance premiums, which insurance agents said will go up slightly for everyone, because of the possibility of a storm like this happening again.
One homeowner said its part of being in Colorado.
“This is all expected for being here and so you roll with it,” said Miller.
If you filed a claim and got a check that had your name and the name of your home lender on it, you’ll need to call your lender to make sure that there aren’t any snags or delays for using that money to fix your house.
(Source: Denise Mosely/WTVM)
(Source: Denise Mosely/WTVM)
Monday, August 22nd 2016, 9:00 am EDTTuesday, August 23rd 2016, 5:23 pm EDT
By WTVM Web Team
MUSCOGEE COUNTY, GA (WTVM) – The investigation continues into a school bus crash in Midland Monday morning, where seven children were injured and the bus driver has died.
The accident happened around 7:45 a.m. near Aaron Cohn Middle School.
According to Ricky Shores with the Columbus Fire Department, a school bus ran off the road and hit a tree. The cause of the accident is unknown at this time.
The police report indicated that despite no drug or alcohol test, first responders do not believe the driver was drinking, nor do they believe his vision was obscured. It does list contributing factors as driver lost control of bus.
While the accident report says the driver lost control, it's still unsure what prompted that in the first place. The school bus is a 1999 vehicle and the speed limit in the area is 45 miles per hour.
The bus contained the driver and seven children and was headed to Mathews Elementary School prior to the crash. The children were between the ages of five and nine years old.
Immediately following the crash, five were transferred to the hospital, including the bus driver. Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan said the bus driver, identified as 67-year-old Roy Newman, of Columbus, died at Midtown Medical Center at 11:12 a.m. Newman's body will be taken to Atlanta for the autopsy.
MCSD says Newman was employed with the school district in 2013 as a bus driver trainee, and he started as a full-time bus driver in March 2014. He was a driver for Shaw High School, Midland Middle School as well Mathews Elementary School.
Major J.D. Hawk said that Newman and two students had to be extricated from the bus.
All seven kids were taken to the hospital to be treated for their injuries. Some of the students in the bus accident have been treated and released from the hospital. One child was airlifted to an Atlanta area hospital. Two other children were admitted to Midtown Medical but are expected to be okay.
A witness to the accident called the scene "horrible."
"I knew that he was going toward the trees cause there was nothing but trees there," she said. "At that point, we got out of the car and there were children screaming. The way that the bus hit the tree… The door was…You couldn’t get into the bus to even reach the children. It was just horrible."
Muscogee County School District Superintendent David Lewis issued a statement, saying:
Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of our bus driver, Mr. Roy Newman, and the children and their families who were involved in the accident. We would like to thank and commend all the of the emergency personnel who responded quickly to the scene with tremendous expertise and professionalism.
GULER vs. PIRI REIS, Dardanelles
Aug. 23, 2016 at 15:54 by Mikhail Voytenko
General cargo vessel GULER and bulk carrier PIRI REIS
reportedly collided in Dardanelles in the afternoon Aug 23, information
unconfirmed. Both vessels were proceeding in southern direction, both
were taken to Erenkoy anchorage. GULER is en route to Durres, Albania, PIRI REIS destination unclear.
Aug. 25, 2016 at 02:12 by Mikhail Voytenko
Bulk carriers BESIKTAS M and COMMON SPIRIT collided at Chittagong Anchorage in Bangladesh in the evening Aug 23, both vessels were damaged. Extent of damages and collision details yet unknown.
Image courtesy Transportation Safety Board of Canada
By MarEx 2016-08-24 21:12:50
Seattle-based American Seafoods Company has settled a suit from a 2013 incident involving the trawler American Dynasty and the Canadian frigate HMCS Winnipeg in Esquimalt, British Columbia.
ASC will pay the Canadian government $3 million to end a legal action stemming from the casualty. Canada has not released a figure for the cost of the damage to the frigate, but the repairs to her hull, deck and frame took five weeks.
The ice-classed trawler Dynasty was bound for the graving dock in Esquimalt on April 23, 2013 when she lost electrical power and the control of her controllable pitch propulsion system.
Following a chain of human errors relating to the transfer of propulsion control from the bridge to the engine room, she lost electrical power, taking down her CPP control system. With her main engines still running and hydraulic pumps off, the CPP shifted to forward thrust. The Dynasty gained speed; her master did not strike the emergency stop buttons to shut down the main engines.
Two assist tugs were not able to restrain the trawler, and she veered off course and struck the Winnipeg, which was moored at a naval pier southwest of the graving dock. At the time of impact, Dynasty was making 5.0 knots, up from 1.7 knots at the time of the loss of electrical power.
Both vessels were badly damaged: the Winnipeg had buckled deck plating and damage to shell plating on both sides of the hull. Her transom was also damaged from contact with the pier, which itself required repairs. The Dynasty suffered a deep gash in her bow.
Investigators with the NTSB and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada found that the Dynasty's emergency generator was not set to start automatically and that the backup batteries to power her CPP system were inoperable. In addition, they determined that a leak in the CPP's hydraulic system caused it to default to the forward position in the event of the loss of electrical power.
