WARNING :blah: :blah: :blah: POST (and ventures way off topic)
Edited to correct date and location
There was a similar hail storm
EDIT at the anual Mayfest in Fort Worth, in 1995.
END EDIT Lots of families out in the open. Estimated 10,000 people. Grapefruit sized hail. Besides the major damage caused to all kinds of things, millions of $$, a lot of people were injured, some seriously. I can't remember if there were any fatalities but I can see how there could have been.
All around the Metroplex, Dallas-Fort Worth, and in-between, there are occasional hail storms that damage tens of thousands of new autos at dealer lots. Oklahoma City isn't that far from us. Welcome to Tornado Alley.
If it wasn't Arlington, it was someplace very close to. We had one storm, about that time, or maybe same day, hail was a little smaller than baseball size here at my house. Most of my plants and some trees were stripped of foliage. No blooms survived. Both of our cars and my truck were under old Oak trees. Not one bit of damage but they were covered by small branches and loads of leaves.
I took some pictures but can find them.
Our native trees have evolved to withstand most of these types of storms yet our record 14" (16" out here once it started sticking) of heavy,
wet snow, this winter, took out more trees than I think any spring/summer/fall storm ever, has including tornadoes, which aren't as widespread as the snow storm was. They just couldn't support the weight. A large percentage of destroyed trees were actually up-rooted from the snow weight, much more so than 100 mph straight line wind usually does. Our record Dallas ice storm didn't do nearly as much damage as this winters snow did. One of our old Oak trees, that has survived many years of high winds, was up rooted. It was one of the trees that sheltered our cars from the big hail.
It took many months for the cities to get most the dead trees picked up and some towns haven't finished. And that's the trees that tree crews have gotten to. Just this week some of my neighbors had tree companies working out here from the snow damage trees. Many people couldn't afford to do it all at once, including us, that is if they could get worked into a schedule. Tree companies are still very busy.
My neighbor worked on some of my uprooted trees a couple of months ago. I just got a crew out here a couple of weeks ago to finish up (and cut down the big Aristocrat Pear that stains the pool all spring-summer with its "fake pears" and almost killed puppy Jake, when he ate a bunch last summer - cyanide poisoning - and two more APs in dog yards and a couple of really big already dead trees that weren't damaged by the snow). I had to wait so long because the crew wasn't back from Mexico yet. They winter there and do have work visas. Owner is friend of my neighbors, Chaco's parents, our foster dog-child, so we get a fabulous deal. Otherwise I could not have afforded to have much at all done. They worked for five hours and cost me what taking down one tree would cost by any other company. I have a several brush piles in the woods, so no chopper needed; left a lot of time for cutting up/down.
gg=alice
