Oh, HAIL no!

So last week, we saw that there was some severe weather in Brad and Bob's neck of the woods and, sure enough, Bob sent an e-mail with a frightening delivery: pictures of the aftermath.

Kansas weather is so extreme...hot hots of 105 degrees in the summer are not terribly unusual, and bone-chilling cold temps of 5 below zero are possible in the winter. It wouldn't be unusual to have a foot or more of snow, and sometimes 2-3 feet. And in the spring and summer, when the hot and the cold have fights as to who will win, tornadoes and hail are the result.

Okay, so let's have a before/after look:



Bob sent pictures of their tomatoes on July 5. His were a lot larger than mine, having had 45-day jump on us since the weather heats up in Kansas a lot earlier than here. They were lush and beautiful plants and they were loaded with tomatoes, as you can see. A few had ripened. The one you see in the front was about 5.5 feet tall, and the one in the back by the fence was about 7 feet tall.




The hail that did this was golf-ball size or larger. Here's the plant in the container...




...and here's the one by the fence.




Here's what it did to a piece of lawn furniture...note the completely broken arm and seat.



Bob reported that when the hail struck the ground it would bounce 4-5 feet in the air. Can you imagine? Well, I can, having lived there. It's fairly terrifying to watch, and even more terrifying to be caught out in. I can remember one day being caught in a similar storm and the hail ripping my poor umbrella to shreds as I raced from the car to the house.




These are heavy, round citronella lamps that sit on the ground and are lit at night. Bob said he thought it odd that the hail wouldn't have just glanced off them since they are round and smooth and metal, which is exactly what I thought when I saw them. But apparently, the hail had other ideas, as you see.




Another area of disaster. Can you imagine the work to clean all this up?




The pool was filled with leaves and debris and had to be cleaned out. The storm had caught Bob by surprise and so the pool, which he was swimming in just before the storm started, didn't get covered as it usually does. Probably best, though, as the undoubtedly would have ripped the cover to shreds.




Look at all the holes made in the lawn by the hail. Bob put his shoe into the picture on purpose near one of the holes to give a perspective of how large the holes were. If you're thinking, "the lawn doesn't look so bad," you should have seen how thick, green and lush it was before this. Take it from me, this looks bad.




Oh, and here is the lawn, covered in the icy stuff.




Bob holds one of the hailstones in his hand. It's not one of the larger stones, it's just one he happened to pick up and photograph.





The cannas alongside the house were decimated. Unfortunately, he can't cut them down because the leaves need to continue collecting sunlight to feed the bulbs for next year.



They had broken storm windows, it totaled their roof, put dents into their wood clapboard siding...just a lot of damage...and a lot of clean-up. Bob remarked that they clean up and clean up, but every day they find new messes as debris continues to fall out of the trees or they come across other damage to property they hadn't noticed yet.

The insurance adjuster is coming Sunday, and this storm happened 10 days ago. Bob called the morning after the storm as soon as the agency opened but the line was busy, busy, busy.

Hmmm....I hear a song playing in the background..."I..love New York..."

I feel for you, my boys. I really do.