Damage assessment continues

June 17--Teams of insurance adjusters will gather at the Ratliff Stadium parking lot to speed up assessments of car damage caused by the recent hailstorms amid reports of a surge in claims and backlogs at local repair shops.

State Farm sent in a group of adjusters, some from out of state, to help local agents. Other insurance companies are expected to join State Farm. During a parking lot appraisal of damaged local vehicles from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today for people who made appointments through their adjusters. Plans called for keeping the Ratliff operation active until claims thin.

Already some in the insurance industry predict the recent hailstorms -- which brought baseball-sized hail and some even bigger hail storms -- caused more damage than any other storm in Odessa history. Reports of damaged roofs, broken windows and smashed car windshields were widespread.

Meanwhile, emergency management officials with the City of Odessa and Ector County await assessments of damage to public property while Ector County Judge Ron Eckert weighs declaring the area a disaster, which could trigger state and federal aid.

Several factors explain why this storm will likely amount to Odessa's most expensive: The population grew during the most recent boom and the city became more densely populated. Odessans bought higher end vehicles and nicer homes as values also inflated.

"That makes for a large loss, especially when you had the size of hail we had," said Paul Talley, a local State Farm agent.

By mid-day Friday, Talley said he had fielded 870 claims since the hailstorms, and the rate of new claims had not slowed. Auto claims made up the bulk of them in the days after the storm.

"The majority of the claims that we've been receiving is damage to windows," Talley said. "Hail breaking large windows in some of the nicer homes. We've heard of chunks of roof being blown off during the high winds, baseball sized hail tearing holes in siding of homes and of course massive damage to windshields and bodies of vehicles."

Other State Farm agents said the company anticipated about 10,000 claims. And as roofers, auto shops and glass repair companies were inundated with customers, suggesting weeks or months of repairs ahead.

Damage was reported throughout Odessa, while the central and eastern areas of the city appeared to get hit the hardest.

Christina Marquez, an insurance agent with Tara Simmons Insurance Agency, said she was advising clients to seek estimates before filing a claim to make sure the costs of the damages exceeded their deductibles and avoid unnecessary claims.

"I know the body shops and everything have been super busy, but that way they can assess what the damage is," Marquez said.

She also anticipated record-breaking storm damage once it's all tallied.

"I don't think we've ever had that many claims coming in all at one time," Marquez said.

Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas trade association, which represents about 500 insurance companies, said he will be in town early next week to project costs of damage from the recent storms. Send me all this so I have it next week

City and County leaders directed department heads to compile reports of damages to government property.

The City of Odessa reported 81 vehicles damaged but were still assessing damage to other city property by Friday.

Ector County did not have figures on the total amount of damaged vehicles by Friday. Ricky George, the county's emergency management coordinator, estimated a week before county officials would have a sense of the scope of damage to the county's property.

So far, few citizens had reported damage to the City of Odessa online by Friday, said Assistant Fire Chief John Alvarez, who is the city's emergency management coordinator. City and county officials asked Odessans with property damage to report it online at Odessa-TX.gov/stormdamage or flag it on social media by using the hashtag #ohail17 to help provide a sense of the scope of the damage, which could help with a disaster relief designation.

Damages would have to meet a threshold of $495,000, almost certainly below the likely cost of the widespread damages. The relief funding, if granted, could assist local governments with cost, provide help to uninsured Odessans or offer small business loans for hard-hit local companies.

"We are trying to do everything we can to find out how much damage it was," Alvarez said, adding the city and county would reach out to the schools and hospitals. "We don't have the resources to go look at every house every neighborhood. That's manpower intensive and we just don't have that manpower. . . Tell us your damage, tell us your amount. It would make it easier..."

The county judge has the authority to declare a disaster area but awaits better estimates on the cost of the damage, George said.

"If you have a tornado come through town it's pretty obvious, but things like this you really have to look at before you make those decisions," George said. "There's no way to accurately estimate the size of the damage until we get all the data analyzed and the insurance agents come in and assign a dollar amount to that."

Contact Corey Paul on Twitter @OAcrude on Facebook at OA Corey Paul or call 432-333-7768.

___

(c)2017 the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas)

Visit the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas) at www.oaoa.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.