Hammering Hail Proves Painful for Property Owners; Good for Business

Aftermath from yesterday`s hammering hail proves painful for property owners but good for business. Callers flooded KQ2`s phone lines to report hail damage to their cars, and they weren`t they only ones who took a beating. Mother Nature wasn`t selective when sending hammering hail through the Midland Empire. New car lots lining the Belt highway took quite a beating. "Some of them have some good dents on them," Tony Franklin, Anderson general manager, says. Franklin assesses the damages on the Susuki lot. He says his dealerships will offer one "hail" of a sale to help get rid of the hail-peppered property. "On the ones that are really bad, we`ll give the customer the choice of either taking the check--the discount--or repairing it back to new, and then a lot of times they`ll decide, well hey I can live with a few dents, fix half, take a little discount," Franklin says. Franklin hopes between insurance money and more people looking to make a deal, Mother Nature`s wrath could actually benefit business. "Our insurance guys will be in here over the next couple of days, and they`ll just have an assembly line. We`ll run all the cars through, they`ll have one guy on each side of the car just making the adjustments--they`re called adjustors obviously--and then they determine how much the dents are worth, and then we`ll have an exact number that we can offer to the customers," Franklin says. It`s the same story at Car City. "I know it sounds cliche but everything must go, and that means huge savings," Julie Love, Car City business development manager, says. If you can live with a few nics and dings, Franklin says the savings could stack up. "You could save $3-5,000 on the right car," Franklin says. Houses also sustained serious damage. "The siding is completely destroyed," Steve Goban, homeowner, says. That means big business for Russell Smith, owner of a guttering and vinyl siding repair shop. "As soon as that hail hit, I knew I was going to be really busy, and I`m booked up all day today and all day tomorrow, just nothing but siding bids," Smith says. Smith measures the height and length of Goban`s hail-damaged home so Goban can claim compensation from insurance.