July’s daily drumbeat of pounding storms across the metro area has swamped dozens of cars, downed hundreds of trees and, now, led to thousands of reports of costly hail damage.
The storms also caused their first serious injury Thursday evening when a 16-year-old boy was swept more than 100 yards down Sand Creek in Aurora near the 1900 block of Potomac Street.
The boy had reportedly been playing near the bank with a 13-year-old girl.
Aurora fire Capt. Allen Robnett said the boy was rescued after being wedged in an island of debris. He was given CPR and rushed to Children’s Hospital Colorado. His condition was not released.
As police and fire authorities arrived, the boy’s mother and a 13-year-old were going into the water after the boy. They were both either pulled from the water or ordered out.
Thursday marked the ninth straight day of thunderstorms in the Denver metro area, and the city has a 40 percent chance of another round this afternoon and a 30 percent chance tonight.
While the official monitoring site at Denver International Airport recorded only a trace Sunday, Centennial saw almost half an inch of rain that day and parts of Boulder County got nearly an inch. Some parts of the metro area have seen more than three times as much rain as DIA has during July.
The latest storm, which barreled through the city about 3 p.m., dropped a reported 2 inches of rain across portions of the waterlogged metro area.
The National Weather Service warned that even lighter rainstorms can cause flooding here because rivers and drainages, as well as the soil, are saturated.
The Fourmile Canyon area, west of Boulder, was evacuated for a second consecutive day Thursday due to flooding and landslides in the area left barren by a 6,200-acre wildfire last fall.
At its peak, about 9,000 Xcel Energy customers briefly lost power as the storm rolled through, a common occurrence with the frequent storms.
Thursday afternoon’s storm, however, was no match for Wednesday’s furious deluge, during which DIA was battered by a 15-minute heavy barrage of hail that canceled more than 150 flights.
At least 40 planes — as well as an untold number of parked cars — were damaged at DIA.
Many of the planes remained grounded early Thursday as airlines inventoried dents and checked for other damage.
Hail damage to airplanes is rare but serious, Evergreen-based airline analyst Mike Boyd said. Certain airplanes with dents 1/4- to 1/2-inch deep are automatically pulled from service for repairs. “It’s not like your car,” Boyd said. “If your hood is dented, you can drive all day with it, but if your wing is dented, it might affect whether an airplane can fly.”
The level of danger hail damage can pose to a plane depends on where the hail hits. Dents on moving parts, such as wing and tail flaps, bring greater risks than dings on the thicker metal of the fuselage.
Broomfield resident Paul Brice, who had arrived from Charlotte, N.C., Thursday morning, walked out to one of the airport’s parking lots and discovered hail dimples scattered across the hood and roof of his truck. Also, the hail had broken both side-view mirrors.
Brice said his truck needs some bodywork because it now “looks like a piece of Swiss cheese.”
About 1,000 passengers making connections through DIA had been stranded until Thursday morning because of the flight delays. DIA has reported almost daily flight delays because of the recent thunderstorms.
By Thursday afternoon, State Farm projected it would receive 6,500 auto-related claims and 4,000 home-related claims as a result of the damage caused along the Interstate 25 corridor from Fountain to Fort Collins.
By comparison, after a major hailstorm in June 2004, State Farm paid on 10,000 auto claims and 7,500 home claims.
Allstate was under a similar siege from policyholders Thursday, with agents rating damage from Wednesday’s hailstorm a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Allstate spokeswoman Mele Telitz said the company expects Front Range claims to continue rolling in over the next few days.
Staff writers Joey Bunch and Justin T. Hilley contributed to this report.
