GOWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — A sudden storm last month damaged several vehicles across Gowanda, including 30 trucks at a local auto dealership that were pelted with golf-ball-sized hail.
Al Schaefer, an auto dealer, said his cars are dinged up.
"This truck, the hood, is decimated, the hood, the roof," Schaefer said as he showed me the damage. "All the tops have a lot of dings. Not only have I never seen anything like this, I almost wouldn't have believed it if someone told me."
Schaefer showed me a cell phone video he took the moment the storm hit Gowanda.
"All of a sudden, the sky started to get dark," he said, recounting what happened. "I put the door down, figuring rain's going to come in. It started just pulsing the door. I've never heard anything like it. I know, like with tornadoes, people say it sounds like a train. I don't know if it sounded like a train. But it was extremely loud."
WATCH: 'Never heard anything like it': 30 trucks damaged at Gowanda auto dealership during hail storm
Schaefer is now trying to figure out what to do with his inventory. He said his business will survive, but he is still waiting to hear from insurance about how much they will cover.
"I do have insurance, but I don't think I have enough. There's almost no way," Schaefer said. "You just don't foresee that you're going to have 30 trucks damaged in a given day. Assuming my insurance company lets me keep them, I will just sell them for less, and they'll become more like a work truck than a specialty truck, and some I'm going to probably try to fix because I cannot find them anywhere."
Bob Kilcoyne visited the dealership Friday. He was about to buy one of those trucks.
"I was going to come down and put money down and take it for a test drive the day of the storm, so I got here, and everything was cut loose," Kilcoyne said.
Now, Kilcoyne is trying to figure out whether to go ahead and buy it.
"I don't know. It depends on what offer he has for the insurance and all that, and we'll see what happens," Kilcoyne said.
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