Mount Pulaski hail damage extensive

[August 24, 2011]  MOUNT PULASKI -- Although to date it has not been widely spoken of, the storm that took down a portable stage at the Indiana State Fair on Aug. 13, taking several lives and leaving numerous others injured, is the same storm that passed through Logan County earlier in the day. 

In our area, fortunately no lives were lost, but there was extensive damage to personal property and farm crops in the Mount Pulaski to Latham area. 

According to Andy Meister of Deron Powell State Farm in Mount Pulaski, more than 120 of the agency's insured vehicles sustained hail damage in the storm. 

Meister said the number of claims was large enough that for a full week, State Farm out of Bloomington sent a disaster relief crew to Mount Pulaski for drive-in claim service on vehicles. 

Monday morning, Meister said he believed the majority of the vehicle claims have been processed, but insurance adjusters for the company are still in the area looking at home damage such as roofs. 

State Farm used the BND Auto Body shop for their claims adjusting. On Tuesday, BND owner Barry McDonald joined forces with Dean Allen out of Noblesville, Ind. Allen is the owner of the Allied Auto Hail Team, a group of specialized body technicians who work solely with catastrophic storm damage to vehicles. Allen said Tuesday that his company offers specialized services and can work with the higher number of claim vehicles. 

Allen estimates that there are approximately 400 cars in the Mount Pulaski area with hail damage. He categorized the damage as moderate, saying he hadn't seen any with windshields broken or paint finishes cracked or chipped away. 

On cars with moderate damage, meaning that there are dents only, his team uses what is called paintless dent repair. Using this method, the cost of the repair is less because there is no sanding, no body filler added to dents, no replacement of body parts and no paint. 

Instead, technicians bring a car into the shop and shine multiple lights on the body of the vehicle, making all the dents visible to the eye. They then use steel rods to do what Allen refers to as "massaging" of the metal, gently rubbing the dents out and returning the car to normal. 

Allen works out of Indiana, and when asked how it happened that he came to Mount Pulaski, he said he uses the information provided by the National Weather Service to locate heavy storm areas. He targets areas that are relatively close to his home base of Noblesville. 

He also noted that on Aug. 13 there were actually five large storm events in the Midwest region. He and his crews started first in northern Indiana, then moved across the state line to northern Illinois and have now worked their way down to Mount Pulaski. 

He said he was interested in coming to this area because he also knows some folks around here, and he wanted to come and do what he could to help them out. 

Allen said his company works well with the insurance providers in the area and also offers to forgo deductibles on auto coverage up to $500. He said he does this because he knows times are tough for everyone, and there may be people who have the higher deductibles and can't afford to pay them, so they end up driving a damaged car because they don't think they have a choice. 

In auto coverage, hail damage is covered under the comprehensive or non-collision portion of the insurance policy. Deductibles on comprehensive coverage can range anywhere from zero to $500 or $1,000. The higher deductible lowers the premium on this portion of the coverage. 

In the Mount Pulaski area, the Downing, Przykopanski, Clements and May Insurance Agency is one provider of crop insurance for area farmers. Kathy Letterle, who works in the Mount Pulaski office, said Monday that Pat Przykopanski and Jeff Clements have been and still are very busy out in the fields, inspecting crop damage in the area. She estimated that damaged crops will end up totaling 10,000 to 15,000 acres. 

One such farmer who lost a great deal of his harvest potential in the Aug. 13 storm is Dean Cates. The Cates farm is three miles due east of Mount Pulaski.

Cates and his wife, Doris, have farmed in the area for 40 years, and he told Phil Bertoni that this is the first time he has ever had to file a claim on his crop insurance for hail damage. 

Cates told Bertoni he is estimating that he lost 50 percent of his soybean crop this year.  "They were up to here on me," says Dean, pointing to his chest, which is about 4 feet above the ground. "The nicest-looking beans I've ever seen."   

He described the damage by saying that many of the leaves of the beans were shredded, and a high percentage of the bean pods were knocked off. 

At home, Cates also noted that the hail had taken its toll on the farmstead, outbuildings and trees around the place. He related that when he and Doris began cleaning up the yard, they loaded and hauled away seven truckloads of leaves, branches and limbs. He also expects that the house will have to have a new roof, and the machine shed is also heavily damaged. 

Bertoni reported that inside the machine shed, it was easy to see the dimpling in the metal caused by tennis ball-sized hail striking the building.       

Cates also said that his corn crop was damaged by the storm, but perhaps not to as severe an extent as the soybeans. 

When insurance adjusters make it to the Cates farm, they will have the daunting task of estimating what the damage may actually be in lost yield. To do this, they will calculate how many total plants are in the acre. Generally this is done by counting 10-foot sections of rows in several locations, then establishing an average.

They will also count the number of plants in the 10 feet that are damaged. Damage to the soybean plant can include defoliation, broken plants, and loss or damage to bean pods. With this information, they will establish an average loss per acre and will from there determine the possible loss of yield.   

With August being considered by most as the latter part of the growing season for corn, determining damage will include looking at downed stalks, defoliation and the number of actual kernels damaged on an ear of corn. 

To determine the damage to the ear, most analysts will perform a kernel count on the ears of 10 consecutive corn stalks. They will count the number of kernels on the ear and the number of damaged kernels. They will then establish a loss percentage based on this. 

Additional analyses will include figuring the percentage of defoliation and the percentage of downed stalks. Once all of this is complete, they will estimate the total crop loss. 

While most of those who were affected by this serious storm can be thankful they did not suffer the terrible losses that many Indiana families did that day, they also have their own trials ahead of them. 

While crop insurance is going to help a lot of the area farmers, it isn't going to pay 100 percent of the revenue potential lost. So, coming on the heels of a couple of not terrific years in Logan County, farmers in the Mount Pulaski area at least are looking at another year of less-than-stellar outcomes for their efforts. 

[By NILA SMITH, with PHIL BERTONI contributing to this report]