Hail hammers parts of Southern Colorado
Thursday’s strong spring storm brought heavy hail to many parts of the Pikes Peak region.
Although no major damage was reported in El Paso County, the sudden arrival caught quite a few people off guard.
Wade Hodges saw the storm on the horizon.
Not wanting to see his recent retirement present damaged, a 2015 Dodge Ram pickup, he quickly too preventative measures.
“So we go to the store, and buy the foam pieces, strapped it on top, and put a blanket across the windshield,” he said.
The homemade hail guard proved to be quite effective, saving the truck from any dings or dents.
Everyone else had to scramble for cover in their garages, under gas station canopies, or simply a large leafy tree.
The hail ranged in size from pea to penny to ping pong.
The Powers corridor in Colorado Springs, as well as the Falcon area, seemed to get more hail than anyone else.
CDOT snow plows were called in to clear the roads in some spots, but it wasn’t soon enough to prevent a handful of hail-related wrecks.
Sky Sox stadium was covered in a blanket of white pellets.
Lucky for the staff, the team was on the road, so no emergency cleanup was needed.
That was not the case for many retailers, including Big R, where workers had to plow the entryway to keep the automatic doors functioning properly, and to allow customers to get to and from the parking lot safely.
Employee Jared Kipp said, “No one wanted to go in and out of the storm, so we had customers waiting in their cars for 10-15 minutes, and we had customers obviously building up in here and obviously we didn’t want them slipping and falling.”
Even hours after the storm passed, private plow crews were pushing piles of hail stones off sidewalks and out of parking lots.
By evening, there was still plenty of hail accumulation on the sides of area roads, but none on the roads, so it was not expected to impact the commute for drivers in the morning.
