Hail Storm

Like much of the South, we had some nasty storms come through Knoxville on Wednesday night. Brian was in Nashville so I was home alone with the boys. We watched weather coverage all afternoon and kept getting new tornado warnings.

I decided to put the boys to bed on their normal schedule even though there were still some nasty storm cells on the way.

I got Rylan down and was reading Carter his last book when the hail started a little after 8 pm. It was really loud so I took Carter downstairs so we could check it out.

I have never seen hail so big! It was golf ball size or larger. The wind was blowing pretty hard so we could only open the door a few inches without getting hit.

Carter was not a fan of the hail. He was pretty scared of all the noise. He wouldn't come very close to the front door and I think he wanted me to come away from it too.

After a few minutes I started to get nervous because the wind started blowing things horizontally. There had been possible tornadoes and I didn't want to risk anything. So I quickly ran upstairs and got Rylan. We all then went into the pantry that is in the center of the house. I couldn't quickly convince Charlotte to also come in so she stayed out but I didn't close the door.

About a minute after we got in the pantry, the hail stopped. I put Rylan down on the floor in the family room (he was not happy about that) and asked Carter to sit with him so I could go look outside.

This is what I saw from the front porch ...




And this is what the hail looked like in front of the garage doors ...


The air smelled strongly of fresh cut trees. It reminded me a lot of hurricanes in North Carolina.

I also noticed a bunch of white plastic pieces on the ground. I wasn't sure what they were until I looked up and saw our white siding. Our house is almost all brick except for our dormer windows and a portion of the west-facing wall above the garage. There were hundreds of holes in the siding and the ground was littered with the broken pieces.

When I got back in, I decided to try getting the boys back to bed since there wasn't anything I needed to do with the hail damage. It was impossible to settle Rylan back down so I ended up letting him cry it out while I put Carter to bed. Rylan fell asleep during that time.

I was downstairs about 2 minutes when the hail started again. Both boys started screaming. So I ran upstairs and got them and then we all went into the pantry again. We were in there only a minute or so when the power went out.

I should have prepared for that to happen, but I hadn't. It is now on my to do list to buy some flashlights! We have a tiny flashlight in a drawer next to the pantry that I found, but the battery in it was about to die and it didn't work well. I managed to use it though to quickly light some candles.

Carter was a bit scared of the power going out, but he relaxed once there was some light. He's a big fan of candles since his birthday so I think he thought it was cool to have them lit.

I had no way now to check the weather with the power out so I decided to try getting the boys to bed again. I ended up nursing Rylan since I could almost guarantee he'd fall asleep and it worked.

I knew Carter was still pretty freaked out so I asked him if he wanted to sleep in my bed. He got super excited about that (we've never had him in our bed before).

Before going to bed I called Brian to let him know what was going on and he told me he was coming home. He was going to drive behind the storm from Nashville to Knoxville and be home in a few hours.

Since we had no power, Carter and I went to bed. He wanted to lie right next to me and it was really nice to get to snuggle with him. It took him a little while to get to sleep, but he slept soundly once he did (no limbs smacking me or pushing me out of the bed). I even drifted off to sleep not too long after Carter.

Brian got in around 12:30 am. We inspected some of the damage together and then went to bed. The power came on around 1 am which meant we had air conditioning again (I had put both boys in just onesies to keep them cool when we had none). Carter woke up before Brian and I fell asleep and realized that Brian was there so I lost my snuggle buddy.

In the morning we discovered a lot of damage to the house. Here are a ton of pictures showing everything:

The west-facing window in our bonus room broke. Luckily it was only the outer pane of the dual-pane window ...


Four of our window screens have multiple holes ...



This is the siding above the garage in the front of the house ...



Here are the dormer windows ...


You can see how even the trim got all busted up ...


Here's the siding above the garage on the back of the house ...


Our roof has tons of dents and chips in it ...



And the ridge vents are all dented ...


There are lots of pieces broken off on the edges ...


All the metal trim along the roof is really dented ...


Both garage doors have tons of dents ...




Our gutters got really dented as well ...


The spout on the one the exits on the roof is crushed ...


The fence used to be one color ...


Our grill cover got destroyed (though the grill seems okay) ...



The railing around our deck has lots of chucks removed along the edges ...


Our table looks like birds pooped all over it!!!


As does our bench ...


The mailbox also has lots of dents ...


It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the hail just shredded our trees and bushes ...


This dogwood tree was full of brand new leaves and has only a fraction of those leaves left. It also has many broken branches.


Here are pieces of plastic siding in the front bed along with hail from the night before ...


Our maple tree also lost a ton of leaves and branches ...



This weigela bush is just one of many torn apart bushes ...


There was a lot of water running through our yard ...


Our neighbors had both of their cars outside during the storm. They are both in really bad shape now ...





We submitted a claim online with our insurance agency but have yet to be contacted by anyone. We have gone ahead and had the window fixed (we were lucky to get someone out quickly) and our siding has been ordered. Hopefully we'll be contacted soon and get a time frame for when someone will be out here to take a look at our damage. It's probably going to be awhile though because many, many houses in our area have similar damage and other places in the South were hit a lot harder than us. We definitely know we are lucky and are just happy that we're all safe!