Hail storm: boat 1, house 0

Well golf ball sized hail and winds up to 140 kmh did a lot of damage yesterday afternoon.
IN PICTURES: Wild storms bring hail, flash floods to SE Queensland - 9news.com.au

Compared to many I fared well. About 75% of the east facing windows on my house were broken. What I wasn't expecting was picking slivers of glass out of the kitchen cabinet doors afterwards!

I was on the boat at the marina. My pilothouse windows also face east and although the hail hitting them sounded like gunshots, they did not break. Also, my solar panel glass survived intact. Pretty amazing, so boat wins over dirt house!

Also, 2 cars damaged. Mazda 3 had rear window smashed, hail dimples all over roof and hood. Mercedes 4WD just had hail dimples on roof and along passenger side, which was facing east at the time.

So, talking to insurance companies and clean-up today, but hope to get down to the boat later to double check for damage.

Photo looking towards a Lagoon 440 60' away, near the end of the hail when the rain is picking up. The river is still pretty chopped up by the falling hail. Second pic is of hail on my foredeck, about half an hour after the rain stopped. The rain had already melted a lot of it as temps was about 25 deg C, but not all.

Riding my bicycle home shortly afterwards there were two fallen trees and so much foliage stripped off the trees that it was at times difficult to see the actual pathway. Close to home there were some iron roofs torn off houses near the path as well.

Today the repairers said my Mazda may well be uneconomical to repair as the car's market value is only about $13,000. Almost every panel has some hail dimples. If the insurers do agree to repair it rather than pay me out it will be in the repair shop for 3 weeks, and earliest booking they have available is mid Feb 2015. There is a big backlog after the storm!

Brian it seems you folks in Brisbane know how to do a hail storm properly. BBC reports where pretty telling but your personal account really brings the story home. Best of luck getting stuff put back right, good thing is it's just stuff.

Hail sucks. We went to Germany once to document the damage to a 757 that had flown through a localized hailstorm on short final. The damage was impressive. The fuselage itself was not damaged, but the leading edge devices were totally shredded as were the spoilers.

When we were in Brisbane a few weeks ago it was having a heat wave with temperatures hitting 100 degrees. Amazing how fast the weather on this planet changes.

While it looks like you're facing some hassles and delays now, I'm sure in the end it will all work out for you. Glad to hear your boat's windows did okay. Compared to a car's rear window, a boat's windows are an expensive pain the ass to replace.

We learned a new phrase while we were working in Brisbane: "no dramas." Here's hoping you don't have any more for a long time to come.

Sorry to hear about that damage Brian. The weather patterns here in Brissy are certainly weird. Fortunately for us here in Springwood that same weirdness seems to protect us. We are half way up the hill, and the hill seems to divert really bad stuff either side and around us. During that storm we had a bit of small hail, then some rain, but not enough to raise the pool any, (unfortunately, as I'll have to top up today), and we had quite moderate wind only. I was initially worried about my recently nicely repainted GT4, but in the end all it got was a good free wash. Really feel for you re your vehicles. Windows not hard to replace, but extensive bodywork dents are difficult. Many vehicles are being written off according to the news. I gather the house is ok, except for broken windows and, I guess, some surface water damage..?

Pete
My house fared quite well considering what was going on nearby. The roof stayed on! But 12 windows broken, including 3 leadlight ones. O'Briens will take those, and put temporary glazing in while they get a specialist to repair them. Also one skylight and a whirly-bird. We did not get a that much water inside, and no water damage of any consequence. But still finding little slivers of glass around the house.

I have piled about 3 cubic metres of tree debris on the verge for the council cleanup. One of the neighbours trees has one of its main branches broken most of the way through but it is being supported upright by one of mine. I need to have some palms removed so I'll add that one to the list for an arborist as I dont want to be up a ladder with a saw - risk management for me!

Still waiting on the insurer's to assess damage whilst they have the repair quote in their other hand. Hopefully will get a response this week, but it might take longer. One early estimate was for over 9500 cars damaged. I'm guessing we will all be paying higher premiums next year!

I did fine one item damaged on the boat - my anchor light's plastic cover is gone! Lucky compared to Jean-Claude and Veronique on the L44 in the pic above. They had multiple holes in one of their clears, a hail dimple in their mast and 8 x 1cm divots out of their gelcoat, down to the laminate which surprised me.

And "Bullet Proof", the houseboat opposite me, had their Intellian sat dish cover smashed, and it seems there is damage to the internals of it as well.

Certainly one for the record books - I hope - or is it just the portent of what will become more common as a feature of climate change perhaps..? As we've just had the hottest, driest, November on record, one has to wonder...

That`s severe, glad you are safe up there. Material things can be fixed, but it`s a hassle, with the insurers and repairers all so busy. Funny how you find more things as time goes by.
Sydney had a big hailstorm at the airport years ago. 30+ planes needed repairs before flying, my car parked in the open at Impulse Air was trashed, seeing TV reports I phoned to check, was told, "looks drivable, otherwise you don`t want to know".

My insurance broker told me today there were now over 42,000 car claims and that around 50% are assessed as total loss. There's several hundred million dollars in damage right there. About 15,000 claims for building damage so far as well.

My Mazda is driveable except that it has no external mirrors and the broken rear window is covered. So lane changes are 'interesting'. Its off limits for my kids to drive and I am only driving it, cautiously, to where repair quotes and damage assessment is done. Should know in a week whether it is a total loss. I kinda hope it is as we can manage with just two cars now.

I'm trying to weatherproof 12 broken windows and a skylight at present as we have a week of rainy weather forecast. O'Brien's told me yesterday that it would 8 weeks before they could get to my house for repairs. But then it turned out that they had the wrong house, and my claim confused with someone else. So I still don't really know when the glass will be repaired. In the meantime one of the lower floor windows is now a security weak-spot so if glass replacement is too delayed then I will have to get some kind of anti-burglary measures in place.