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Fierce hail storm hammers Colorado Springs

Windows broken, airport damaged and cars dented

Colorado Springs often gets hail storms in the summer, but Thursday night’s storm was a new beast.

Windows of cars and homes were smashed, dents covered car hoods, roofs were beaten and cloth canopies, plants and trees were shredded. More than two dozen police cars and facilities at the Colorado Springs Airport were damaged.

Colorado Springs Utilities said the weather wiped out power to 1,800 customers in east Colorado Springs, and 18 residents of the Value Place Motel spent the night in a shelter because of storm damage, according to the American Red Cross.

Golf ball- and tennis ball-size hail led the Colorado Springs Airport to cancel one flight and delay others as crews worked to repair skylights, runway lights and airfield vehicles, with an estimated $300,000 to $500,000 in damages.

The hardest-hit areas were in northeast Colorado Springs, Security-Widefield and Fountain, and residents there on Friday assessed the damages.

“I knew it was going to be bad the way it came so strong and suddenly,” resident Sol Sinclair said Friday. The back window of his roommate’s Kia was shattered. His week-old Ram 1500 was peppered with dents.

Flooding in the cul de sac reached the rim of his truck tires, he said.

“I’ve lived in Colorado 10 years and I’ve never seen it this bad,” Sinclair said.

The Colorado Springs Police Department wasn’t spared, either.

About 40 cars at its Stetson Hills Division in northeast Colorado Springs were dented, and more than half of them had busted windshields. In at least four vehicles, the back windshield was shattered, rendering the vehicle unusable. Officers were triaging the remaining vehicles to determine which cracks they could drive with and which would keep the cruisers parked, spokeswoman Lt. Catherine Buckley said.

For more information go to gazette.com.



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