Home, car owners assess hail damage

There are 37 holes in the roof of New Hyde Park resident Alison Lucon's sun porch, and they're all from hailstones -- she counted them Tuesday, she said, while on the phone with her insurance company.

Lucon's house was hit hard in Monday's storm, which brought teacup-sized hailstones, about 3 inches in diameter, to parts of western Nassau County, devastating car windshields, fences and other property.

"It looks like a meteor shower came through here," said Lucon, 37. One of her gutters was split in half in the storm, and her aluminum awning and window panes were bruised with deep dents from hail.

The damage is even more stressful for Lucon because her house is for sale. "This room was the best selling point of the house," she said of the porch, which looks out on her backyard.

Meteorologist David Stark from the National Weather Service in Upton, said that a combination of forces created perfect conditions for dangerous hail in New Hyde Park and Garden City, the areas that were hit hardest.

"The storm was reaching very high up into the atmosphere where it was plenty cold, and the hail was being suspended up there for quite some time, which is why it got so big," Stark said, adding that this kind of hailstorm on Long Island is "definitely a rare occurrence."

The storm's aftermath was evident by the overflow of damaged vehicles parked at auto body shops around New Hyde Park Tuesday. By 11 a.m., Bob Tolgar, owner of Tip Top Auto Body in Garden City Park, said the shop had seen about 150 cars, trucks and SUVs towed in or dropped off with hail damage, ranging from clusters of golf ball-sized dents to shattered windshields.

On a normal day, the shop repairs 10 to 12 cars, but "we can't even get the glass fast enough" to keep up with the demand, Tolgar said. As a result, owners of cars without cracked glass were asked to make appointments later in the week so the shop can deal with the influx of cars that aren't fit for the road.

Less than 2 miles away, New Hyde Park Auto Body Works had a line of customers snaking around the corner Tuesday morning before the shop opened. Co-owner Charlie DiMarino Jr. said his shop had seen around 35 customers and had 25 appointments for Wednesday so far. "I've never seen anything like this," said DiMarino as tow trucks hauled in damaged cars two at a time.

When Beauvais Plaisance, 28, left LA Fitness in Lake Success Monday afternoon, he discovered a shattered, jagged rear windshield, a cracked front windshield and massive dents across the body of his silver Nissan Maxima.

"I have a 2-year-old son, my car seat is in the back," Plaisance said after he dropped his car off at New Hyde Park Auto Body Works. "So I definitely don't feel comfortable driving my car like this."

Another storm has been forecast for Wednesday, but Stark said the most it should bring is heavy downpour in western areas of Long Island.