August hailstorm cost Calgarians billions of dollars in damage

An intense hailstorm that pummelled the Calgary area in early August resulted in nearly $2.8 billion in insured losses, according to theInsurance Bureau of Canada (IBC).

On Aug. 5 at around 8 p.m., an Alberta Emergency Alert was issued for Calgary and nearby areas after Environment and Climate Change Canada warned of torrential rainfall and potentially baseball-sized hail.

The hailstorm that followed pummelled parts of north Calgary, battering homes and vehicles and even triggering the closure of sections of the Calgary International Airport following damage to a terminal roof.

In a news release Wednesday, the IBC reported that Alberta's insurers received over 130,000 claims as a result of the summer storm, according to initial estimates from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc.

"We have seen tens of thousands of homes damaged to their roofs, to their siding, tens of thousands of vehicles, many of which are being completely written off," Aaron Sutherland, IBC vice-president, told CBC News.

He says the hail damage had a "devastating" effect on Calgarians, adding that nearly one in every five homes were impacted by the Aug. 5 hailstorm.

"This is going to be a wake-up call to the fact that we need to better prepare and protect our community."

One Canadian hail researcher echoed that concernand says this hailstorm reignites a conversation around how places like Calgary can better prepare.

Developed out of Western University in London, Ont., the Northern Hail Project a scientific research group that documents various hail events around Canada is in the process of studying and analyzing data from Calgary's latest storm.

'A really big number,' says hail researcher

Julian Brimelow, the Edmonton-based executive director of the Northern Hail Project, says he's taken aback by the insurance damage estimates.

"We were expecting it to be bad, but I'll be honest with you: when we first found out by email, there was a lot of surprise as to how much it actually was. That's a really big number," said Brimelow.

He believes these figures highlight the need for a collective "game plan" on severe weather preparedness moving forward, to assure people and their properties can be protected from similar events.

Such a plan, he says, may include using higher-quality materials for homes, developing better building codes and educating people about how to protect themselves during intense storms or dangerous weather events.

WATCH | How storms can affect different regions in different ways:

North Calgary seems to see more hail. Why?

1 month ago

Duration 6:28

In the aftermath of Calgary's latest major hailstorm, many are wondering why certain parts of the city are seeing the damaging effects of hail more often. The CBC's Helen Pike speaks with researchers on the ground.

"I'm not a policymaker, I'm not a politician. But as a scientist, you know, we can provide folks with the information and hopefully they make the right choices and ultimately do what's best to make more resilient communities so people don't feel helpless and overwhelmed and out of pocket," he said.

"Life's expensive enough without having to deal with something like this, right?"

Brimelowsays his group gathered a large amount of data over the course of the five days they documented this storm, even interviewing residents and collecting samples of home siding.

He says the team isstill studying the storm, but he hopes their learnings will be able to paint a clearer picture of what happened and how to mitigate similar damage in the future.

The IBC calls the impact of the storm on Calgary residents "unprecedented," adding it expects the rebuilding process to take time.