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Tagged: Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety

Local News
4:37 pm
Wed February 20, 2013

Hail Breaks Loose In Name Of Insurance Research

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Credit Julie Rose
A full-size home and car await an onslaught of homemade hail inside the testing facility of the Insurance Institute of Business and Home Safety.
Credit Julie Rose
Patio furniture and childrens' toys joined the small house on a turntable that slowly rotated during the test.
Credit Julie Rose
Cameras on the model home captured the hail storm for future study.
Credit Julie Rose
IBHS Engineer Ian Giammanco fired the hail cannons from a control room.
Credit Julie Rose
Some 9,000 hail stones made from a mix of seltzer and tap water were used during the test. They ranged between 1 and 2 inches in diameter.
Credit Julie Rose
IBHS CEO Julie Rochman gives an update on the hail test.
Credit Julie Rose
The IBHS Research Center's test chamber is 21,000 square feet.
Credit Julie Rose
The IBHS Research Center is equipped with 105 fans that can recreate the winds of a Category 3 hurricane.
Credit Julie Rose
IBHS Engineer Tanya Brown
Credit Julie Rose
The IBHS research center opened in Richburg, SC in 2010.
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Hail causes about $1 billion in damage to U.S. property and crops each year. Insurers would like to minimize those losses. That's where the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety comes in. On Wednesday morning, the Institute created a full-scale hailstorm inside its laboratory in Richburg, South Carolina – about an hour from Charlotte. WFAE's Julie Rose sent this report:  

Tanya Brown has had a single obsession these past two years: how to make hail.

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