Hundreds of Vehicles in Sioux Falls Damaged by Storm

Sioux Falls, S.D., auto body shops are in for a busy summer after a storm that pelted the metro area with pea- to golf ball-size hail, damaging hundreds of vehicles.

No injuries were immediately reported from the Thursday afternoon storm, which dropped heavy rain in a short amount of time, causing some minor flash flooding, and spawned funnel clouds and at least one tornado.

“We are booked solid out to June 19. And that’s just the hail estimates,” Ryan Higgason, body shop manager at Sioux Falls Ford, told the Argus Leader newspaper.

Jackson Roos, a former storm chaser, told KSFY-TV that it was some of the worst hail he’s seen.

“I saw a couple of them that were egg-size, to the point where they were hitting the sidewalk and just shattering because of the weight,” he said.

Sirens didn’t sound in the city of Hartford when the tornado warning was issued, and Mayor Paul Zimmer told KELO-TV that his office got numerous complaints.

Minnehaha County Emergency Manager Lynn DeYoung told KSFY that the twister popped up quickly and “caught everybody by surprise.”

DeYoung also said the 2,500 residents of the city just to the west of Sioux Falls were not in danger.

“We’re not going to alert people when there’s no real threat based on the information that we have,” DeYoung said.

There were no immediate damage reports from the tornado.