Your Guide to St. Louis Storm Season: How to Protect Your Car from Hail, Wind, and Flood Damage
If your car was damaged in a St. Louis storm, the right next steps are: document the damage in good light, contact your insurance company to open a claim, and get an independent estimate from a qualified body shop before accepting a settlement. You're not required to use your insurer's preferred shop — you choose where your vehicle is repaired.
St. Louis averages more than 50 severe thunderstorm events per year, with peak activity running from June through August. Hail, straight-line winds, and flash flooding are common enough that they shouldn't catch any local driver off guard — but vehicle damage from summer storms is one of the most frequent reasons cars end up in a body shop.
Here's what to do before and after a storm to protect your vehicle, and how to know when it's time to call a body shop.
How to Prepare Your Car Before a St. Louis Storm
Most storm damage is unavoidable once the weather hits. But a few minutes of preparation can mean the difference between a close call and a significant repair bill.
Find covered parking. If you have a garage, use it. If not, identify nearby covered parking structures — at work, near home, or both — before you need them. Hail causes damage quickly, and a parking structure is the only reliable protection against a serious storm.
Use a car cover or moving blankets as a last resort. If covered parking isn't an option, a heavy-duty car cover or thick moving blankets can provide some protection against smaller hail. They won't prevent damage from a major storm, but they can reduce the severity. Secure them tightly — loose coverings in high winds become a hazard.
Check the forecast proactively. The National Weather Service issues watches and warnings well in advance of most severe storms. Get in the habit of checking conditions the evening before — especially during June, July, and August — so you have time to act rather than react.
How to Inspect Your Car for Storm Damage
Once it's safe to go outside, inspect your vehicle carefully before assuming it came through clean. A systematic walk-around in good light will catch damage that's easy to miss at a glance — and accurate documentation matters if you're filing an insurance claim.
Hail damage shows up as small dents distributed across horizontal surfaces — the roof, hood, and trunk lid take the most impact. Look closely at the metal in good light; hail dents can be subtle, especially on vehicles with complex body lines that obscure shallow impacts. Check the glass too, including the windshield, rear window, and sunroof.
Wind damage tends to be more obvious — fallen branches, debris strikes, or damage from objects that became airborne. Inspect the full perimeter of the vehicle, paying close attention to the doors, quarter panels, and mirrors. Even a glancing hit from a branch can crack paint and leave an entry point for rust.
Flood and water damage is trickier to assess from the outside. If water reached the rocker panels or higher, there's potential for rust development in areas you can't easily see. Check door jambs and lower body panels for waterline residue, and note any standing water in the wheel wells. If your vehicle was significantly submerged, the concerns go well beyond body damage — but from a paint and body standpoint, moisture intrusion should be addressed sooner rather than later.
When to Call Your Insurance Company After Storm Damage
You don't have to wait for insurance approval before getting a repair estimate.
When you bring your vehicle to Shur-Way Auto Body after a storm, our I-CAR certified technicians perform a thorough damage assessment — including damage that isn't immediately visible. That documentation matters when you file a claim. Insurance adjusters work quickly and don't always catch everything. Having a detailed estimate from a qualified shop gives you a clearer picture of the full scope of repairs, and it puts you in a better position if the initial settlement doesn't cover everything.
As a general rule: contact your insurance company to open a claim and notify them of the damage, but get your own estimate from a trusted shop at the same time. You're not obligated to use an insurer's preferred shop, and you have the right to choose where your vehicle is repaired — a right that applies in Missouri regardless of what an adjuster suggests.
Shur-Way works with all major insurance carriers and handles the documentation process alongside our customers — it's something we've been doing from our Maplewood shop for over 50 years.
Hail Damage Deserves Its Own Attention
Hail is the most common form of severe weather damage we see at Shur-Way Auto Body, and it warrants a closer look than a standard post-storm inspection. The pattern and depth of hail dents determines whether paintless dent repair is an option or whether conventional repair is needed — and that's not always easy to assess on your own.
Paintless dent repair preserves your vehicle's original factory finish and is typically faster and less expensive than conventional repair, but it only works when the paint surface is intact and the dents fall within certain size and depth thresholds. Larger dents, creased metal, or hail strikes that breached the clear coat require conventional repair with refinishing.
Don't Wait on Storm Damage
Storm damage is worth addressing promptly. Breached paint corrodes, and minor dents that go unrepaired can lead to cracking clear coat over time. A repair that's straightforward in June may be more involved by fall.
If your vehicle took a hit this storm season, we're happy to take a look. Shur-Way Auto Body has been serving St. Louis drivers from our Maplewood shop since 1971, and every repair we perform is backed by a lifetime guarantee for as long as you own the vehicle. We use Spies Hecker water-based, low-VOC paint to match factory finishes, and our technicians are I-CAR certified — the industry standard for collision repair training.
