Rusk County body shops inundated with hail-damaged vehicles

RUSK COUNTY, Texas (KLTV) - Henderson and the surrounding towns continue to recover from a hailstorm that damaged buildings and nearly every vehicle in the storm’s path. Rusk County Fire Marshal Patrick Dooley says he is still seeing damage from last Wednesday’s hailstorm. He says nearly every vehicle parked outside was dented. He estimates the area affected, which includes downtown Henderson, was conservatively a mile wide and three miles long. “Repair shops are just inundated with trying to get vehicles repaired. I know we had a local Kroger’s, we had damage to it. Our middle school, we had damage to it. Our Wiley Primary here in Henderson had damage to it. That doesn’t even count everything out there in the county that had damage to it. So, we had quite a bit of damage. And vehicles, just vehicles upon vehicles,” Dooley said. Dooley says both the police department and the sheriff’s office have damaged vehicles in their fleets, too. He says there were easily over three hundred vehicles hit, and roof damage to other buildings around town.