Cullman Mayor Woody Jacobs believes his city could be looking at more than $10 million in damages due to last week's storms.
By Bob Gathany
bgathany@al.com
Monday night's severe storms did major damage at Mitch Smith Chevrolet in Cullman as baseball-sized hail severely damaged 380 new vehicles. Security camera video shows the large hail taking out car windows and exploding as it hits the pavement.
According to owner Sharon Smith, only three or four vehicles on the lot out of nearly 400 did not have any damage. Some of the most expensive vehicles, such as Corvettes, were stored in the company's service bays but there was not room for many other vehicles.
The hail started about 7:10 p.m. and lasted almost 20 minutes. The dealership had closed early for the day due to the storm warnings so there were no employees at the property during the storm.
The company cannot sell any of the vehicles until after insurance appraisers make their assessment but they are already getting calls asking about purchasing vehicles at discounted prices due to the damage.
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CULLMAN COUNTY, AL (WBRC) -
Assessments are still being done, but Cullman Mayor Woody Jacobs believes his city could be looking at more than $10 million in damages due to last week's storms.
Jacobs says the damage stretches from one end of the city to the other, with the southern end getting the worst of it. He says it’s likely the hail did more damage than the tornadoes, especially to roofs and cars.
The good news is there weren't any reports of any serious injuries. Still, some of those hailstones that fell were baseball size or larger. That was a surprise to most who live there.
"Just talking to some of the adjusters, one I met with yesterday, was from Fort Worth, Texas and from what they've said, this is the worst hail storm east of the Mississippi, ever,” Jacobs said. “This is uncommon for this area to get this widespread of hail.”
Jacobs says on Tuesday, EMA officials will get with county and city officials to, again, go over what they're seeing and really assess how widespread this damage is, how much it will cost. He says there's certainly quite a way to go before they get back to normal.
Several businesses along Cullman’s busy Cherokee Avenue remained closed Monday due to the storm damage.
That included several stores in the Marketplatz Shopping Center, like TJ Maxx, Cato's and the AMC Movie Theatre.
At the Golden Corral down the street, crews are hard at work repairing the roof, which was severely damaged with baseball-sized hail.
The holes allowed rain to pour inside, and that damaged the carpet, tiles, and lights.
When asked to rate the severity of damage on a scale of one to 10, Kitchen Manager Donna Smith didn’t hesitate to give an answer.
"A 10. We've never been closed this long. We've had some freezers pop and been closed for a day, but this has been pretty bad,” Smith said.
But being closed hasn’t mean a break for employees.
"We've had some employees who've helped clean. Other stores have taken employees in so they don't lose money, so it's been a team effort from all of us."
Smith says they hope to reopen by Wednesday night, Thursday at the latest.