After the hail: triage a neighborhood in a day, not a month
The week after a hail storm, everyone wants the same thing at once: owners want answers, carriers want documentation, crews want addresses. Here is how to get from the storm to the first inspection without guessing.
Storm response usually fails in one of two ways. Either teams wait for perfect information and lose the week, or they rush door to door and spend it on roofs that were fine. A short, repeatable workflow avoids both.
1 · Map the swath
Start with where the storm actually was, not where the news said it was. Radar‑derived hail swaths show the path of the cell and the estimated stone size along it. Draw your working area around the part of the swath where stones were large enough to matter for the roofs in your market.
Hail around an inch across and larger is the size most often associated with roof damage, but materials differ: older asphalt shingles are more vulnerable than newer impact‑rated products, and tile behaves differently again. Treat the swath as a shortlist of streets, not a verdict.
2 · Compare before and after
A post‑storm image alone invites guesswork. The same roof imaged before and after the storm turns guesswork into a difference: new dark patches, displaced tiles, debris and fresh tarps stand out against the baseline.
Expect a gap between the storm and the first clear image — weather that brings hail often brings cloud. Plan for the first comparison a few days after the event, and don’t treat a cloudy pass as a clean bill of health.
The useful question isn’t “is this roof damaged?” It’s “is this roof different from last month?”
3 · Rank what changed
Once every roof under the swath has a before and an after, rank them. A good ranking blends three things:
- Severity now — how bad the roof is on the latest pass;
- Size of the change — a roof that dropped from Sound to Repair matters more than one that was already in Repair;
- Exposure — how close the roof sat to the core of the swath.
In ORA this is the priority queue: roofs that crossed into Critical with this pass come first, then the largest drops, then everything else that needs attention.
4 · Act on the top of the list
With a ranked list, the rest is logistics. Route inspections by neighborhood so crews aren’t zig‑zagging across town. Send owners a short, specific message with the before‑and‑after image — it is far more credible than a flyer. For carriers, export the list with imagery and findings so adjusters can prioritize the same way.
- Swath drawn, roofs under it counted.
- Before‑and‑after comparison run for every roof in the swath.
- Top of the list assigned to crews by neighborhood.
- Owner and carrier communication drafted from the same evidence.
5 · Close the loop
Every inspection is a label. Record whether the finding was confirmed, what the crew found that imagery missed, and what the repair was. That feedback is what turns next season’s ranking from a good guess into a reliable one.
Field notes
- Be accurate with owners. Show what the image shows and say what an inspection will confirm. Over‑claiming damage costs trust you need for the next storm.
- Keep the baseline fresh. The comparison is only as good as the “before”. Regular passes outside storm season are what make the “after” meaningful.
- Watch the second wave. Some damage shows up weeks later as staining or granule loss. Keep storm‑area roofs on watch for the next passes.
Be first on the right street.
Storm swaths, before‑and‑after for every roof, and a ranked list your crews can work.
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