Sundre auto body shops are busy fixing numerous vehicles with damage from the hailstorm that hit the region on July 17.
“Every shop around here is going to be busy, busy, busy,” said Wes Dallman, owner of Dallman Restoration & Bodyworks.
Officials from Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) Canada have been working at the location for the past week, providing estimates for various cases of damage.
“The insurance companies will gather up a certain number of estimates and then they will have drive-in estimates done by PDR Canada,” explained Karen Dallman, office manager.
She said the amount of hail damage seen from this storm is not new to Sundre, as she has witnessed two major hailstorms previous to this one.
“Some of the damage is too extensive for the PDR,” said Wes.
“So the stuff that the paintless dent repair guys can't do then it has to be done by the old paint way.”
Sundre and surrounding areas were pelted with dime, nickel and toonie-sized hail during the storm.
Environment Canada issued both a severe thunderstorm watch and a tornado watch prior to the storm.
Dan Kulak, a meteorologist with Environment Canada who is based in Edmonton, said there were reports of some severe hail south of Carstairs -- from Water Valley getting golf-ball sized stones, to some areas northeast of Calgary getting tennis-ball sized stones.
There were also some larger stones reported in Olds – about an inch in diameter.
He said Environment Canada hadn't received any tornado reports, but said it had been possible with the conditions.
“We haven't received any reports related to that. Everything we have so far from that area is hail-related. Not to say that nothing else happened, but that's what we received directly,” said Kulak.
He added, however that lightning is much more dangerous and common than tornadoes, and that residents should be aware of lightning safety as much as tornado safety.
“We tend to overlook lightning, and lightning is the Number 1 killer from summer thunderstorms across Canada on average in any given year,” he said.
There are usually a dozen tornados reported in Alberta in a year, but there are 300,000 lightning strikes per year, he noted.
“And every one of those is potentially deadly, and you don't need a warning to have a thunderstorm… Every thunderstorm has lightning and has potentially deadly consequences. So lightning safety I think in summertime is your Number 1 thing for storm safety, as it's not just severe storms, but every storm.”
