ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. (First Alert 4) – As storms hit the Metro Sunday night, homes and cars across the region were damaged by hail.
Ismail Latif said in all his years living in west St. Louis County, this is the worst storm damage he’s seen.
“Pretty scary and a lot of noise,” Latif said. “Golf-size balls just pelting on the cars and the roofs and the windows and everything. We thought it was all going to smash in.”
Chunks of siding were ripped off his home and windows are broken. Both of Latif’s cars are dented and have either windshields or windows shattered.
“We came out an hour or two after and saw the extent of the damage and it was pretty bad,” Latif said.
With it being a holiday, the Latif family hasn’t been able to get a rental car, leaving them wondering how they’re going to get to work tomorrow and the rest of the week.
Subdivision after subdivision, from Ballwin to Valley Park has seen the aftermath of Sunday’s storms.
Resident Dean Heuvelman was already in action Monday morning with a roofing company out at his house.
“It’s just the side of the house where most of the hail got hit and the front,” Heuvelman. “It must have come from this way. Usually, it goes around us but this time it didn’t.”
Heuvelman is waiting for his insurance company to assess the damage so it can get repaired.
“There are concerns always of who is in line and when, so we’ll see what happens,” Heuvelman said. “All we can do.”
Guaranteed Roofing and Contracting owners Anthony Koessel and Jake Gehrin said their business is already seeing a major influx in calls.
“We were out until about midnight,” Koessel said. “We were about four hours, five hours of tarping. A lot of skylights bashed out. We had to make sure they were taken care of and no more interior damage was getting done.”
“Broken windows, newer roofs that people might now know that the hail had damaged,” Gehrin said. “A lot of broken siding. Some houses without a house wrap and got to get those holes covered up.”
Koessel said for now, it sits in the hands of the insurance companies before repairs can be made. From start to finish, Koessel said all of it can be a two to three month process.
Koessel said he wants homeowners to be vigilant when it comes to who they hire.
“Do your research,” Koessel said. “Make sure you’re looking up on the Better Business Bureau, Google reviews. See how reputable they are.”
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