Norman City Council Begins Assessing Damage From Historic Hail Storm

The City of Norman was hit by a historic hailstorm last week. During Wednesday's city council meeting, councilmembers are beginning to discuss ways to assess damage to city property.

“Most of our fleet lives outside uncovered,” Norman city manager Darrel Pyle said. “We had 28 patrol vehicles with broken windows. Lots of little dents lots of pick-up trucks. Some of the heavier equipment is a little less noticeable on the garbage truck versus on of the regular vehicles.”

Pyle said the city planned to replace the glass as quickly as possible but some of the windows have been back ordered through August.

The city is also holding off on repairs because they don’t want to overcrowd local body shops.

"Our desire to hold off on some of the bodywork until the general public has had the chance to get in all the body shops,” Pyle said. “We have enough dinged up vehicles that we could flood every paint and body shop in the metro.”

Norman Public Schools’ buses were also damaged in the hail storm.

“I am told a lot of the school district sustained substantial damage,” Pyle said. “Not a lot of broken glass but everyone's got dents in them, so we wanted to hold off and let the public get caught up on their insurance claims and their vehicle repairs.

Later this summer, Pyle said the city also plans to have Enterprise Fleet create a new proposal.

“We are in conversation with enterprise fleet they are starting to reemerge post pandemic," Pyle said. "Our goal is to get them out here this summer and evaluate our fleet and make a proposal that we can bring back to council to see if there's a better more cost-effective way to drive a newer safer healthier fleet.”