Hail raged down on roofs, windows, and cars on Sunday, March 26, causing hundreds of dollars of damage with every hit. The hail storm only lasted about five minutes, but it cost families all over Argyle with its destructive blows.  

“I always have concern when we have bad weather coming in,” Transportation Director Albert Rutledge said. “Snow and ice can result in school closing, and hail has a damaging effect on our school buses and white fleet.”                                                                                                                 

Bringing a tornado touchdown in Justin, golf ball to baseball sized hail and an estimated $500 million in damage to North Texas, the most destruction was primarily done to roofs, leaving Argyle residents with enough hail damage to have to get them completely replaced.

“I was not surprised by the hail damage to my roof,” Argyle resident Jimmie Stapleton said. “I had assumed it would be a total lose of the roof, after hearing the hail hit the roof.”

Roofs weren’t the only concern people had about their homes, with the hail so loud it sounded as if it were pouring into people’s homes, many windows were broken.

“When I heard the hail hitting our windows, I thought [they] were broken,” Stapleton said. “I was happy to find nothing was broken and my family was safe.”

The powerful blows from the hail smashed car windows all over Argyle, resulting in many Argyle High School’s students cars being undriveable. Plus, many cars had decent sized dents covering the hood and roof.

“I was wondering the cost of everything and what could go wrong if it were to happen again when I saw the damage,” sophomore Tatum Gregston said. “Thankfully my windshields didn’t break or anything, I just had dents on the hood of my car.”                                                     

Even the school’s buses and faculty suburbans couldn’t escape the wrath of the hail, with 6 buses and 2 school suburbans having to be put out of service. The school had to borrow Denton ISD buses for drivers to run their normal routes.  

“I came in Sunday evening after the storm to assess the damage and wondered how are we going to cover morning and afternoon routes tomorrow,” Rutledge said. “Due to testing, field trips were light so we were able to use trip buses to cover routes for most of the week.”                                                                          

The hail storm brought unwanted intrusion in people’s pockets and time, with residents having to pay deductibles and set time aside to get cars, windows, and roofs repaired.

“A lot of overtime was worked last week,” Rutledge said. “We had to make adjustments for field trips that were running later in the week. We had to prepare paperwork for the insurance adjuster. We also had to arrange for pickup and return of buses borrowed from Denton ISD.”

Although it is a pain to waste time and money on an uncontrollable force of nature, no one was seriously injured from the hail. 

“There is nothing you can do to prevent hail damage,” Stapleton said. “It is an act of nature, you deal with it and you move on.”