Oklahoma is one of the most active severe weather states in the country. If you live in OKC or Tulsa and own a home, a significant hail storm is not a question of if — it is a question of when. Most homeowners are not ready when it happens. The ones who are ready get better outcomes.
This is not a complicated process. But there is a specific order that matters, and there are things that disappear within hours that you will wish you had later — especially if an adjuster comes out and tries to argue that the storm was not severe enough to cause damage, or that what they are seeing is just wear and tear on an old roof.
Here is what to do.
Step One — Before You Do Anything Else: Go Outside and Start Documenting
The most valuable evidence you will ever have for a hail claim is sitting on your lawn, your driveway, and your gutters right now. And it is melting.
Hail on the ground is the single most powerful piece of evidence in a storm damage claim. It proves the storm happened. It proves the size of the hail. And it gives you something to hold in your hand — literally — when an adjuster later tries to argue that three-quarter inch hail cannot damage your roof.
This one image — hail in hand, size clearly visible, timestamp from your phone — is worth more than almost anything else you will gather during this entire process. It establishes the storm event, the date, the location, and the hail size at your specific property. It is the thing we wish every homeowner had when an adjuster shows up weeks later and tries to minimize what fell on your house.
Take multiple pieces. Take wide shots that show hail covering your lawn, driveway, and landscaping. Take video walking around your property. Your phone automatically timestamps and geotags everything — that metadata matters.
The Full First-Hour Documentation Checklist
Do all of this before the storm debris clears, before neighbors clean up their yards, and before you call anyone.
Photograph hail on the ground with a size reference
Pick up the largest pieces you can find. Hold each one next to a tape measure, a ruler, or common coins — a quarter is roughly an inch across. Photograph from multiple angles. Shoot video walking through the yard showing accumulation. This establishes storm severity at your address.
Document storm evidence across the entire property
Photograph and video everything the storm touched — hail in gutters and downspouts, leaves and branches stripped from trees, broken plants, cracked flower pots, dented trash cans, anything that shows a severe weather event occurred. Context matters enormously when someone later questions storm severity.
Walk the exterior of your home at ground level
Do not go on the roof — not yet, and not without a professional. But walk every side of your home and photograph everything you can see from the ground. Window screens, AC unit fins, gutters, downspouts, siding, any visible soft metal surfaces. These are the items that will show clear hail strikes and support everything else in your claim.
Check for any immediate interior issues
Walk through your home and look for active water intrusion — ceiling stains, wet spots, drips. If you find any, photograph them immediately and place buckets to catch water. Document everything. If there is active damage, contact your carrier to report it and note the date and time of your call.
Check your vehicle and any outbuildings
Hail damage to your vehicle, a detached garage, a carport, or a storage building is additional evidence of storm severity at your specific property. Photograph dents on your car hood — these are extremely consistent indicators of hail size and can support your roofing claim when the adjuster is present.
Write down what you remember about the storm
Time the storm started. Time it ended. Approximate size of hail based on what you observed. Whether there was wind, and from which direction. Anything unusual — exceptionally large hail, multiple waves, extended duration. This written record, dated, is a useful supplement to your photos if the timeline of events ever becomes relevant.
Call a qualified roofing contractor — not your insurance company first
Get a professional inspection and documentation before you file a claim. A contractor who inspects your property before the claim is opened can help you understand what you actually have, what type of claim to file, and whether the damage warrants filing at all. Filing the wrong type of claim — or filing prematurely without a clear scope — creates problems that are difficult to undo.
File the claim — armed with documentation
Once you have your contractor's inspection and documented findings, you are in a much stronger position to file. You know what you have. You know the correct type of claim to file. And you have evidence that cannot be dismissed as vague after-the-fact recollection.
What to Photograph — The Complete Guide
Your phone camera is the most powerful tool you have in the first hour after a storm. Here is everything worth capturing.
Hail Evidence
Hail on the ground, in gutters, on window sills. Hold largest pieces next to a tape measure. Shoot video showing coverage across the yard. Capture hail accumulation in corners and low spots.
Storm Context
Stripped leaves on the ground, broken branches, downed limbs, torn plant material. Shows storm force and corroborates severity claims that an adjuster might otherwise question.
Gutters & Downspouts
Photograph all gutter runs from multiple angles. Dents in gutters and downspouts are among the clearest indicators of hail size and are very difficult for an adjuster to dispute.
Window Screens
Punctures and deformation in window screens correspond directly to hail size. Photograph every screen you can access. These are excellent supporting evidence on every slope of your claim.
AC Unit
The aluminum fins on your AC condenser show hail impacts extremely clearly. Photograph from multiple angles. This is some of the best soft metal evidence on your entire property.
Vehicles
Hood, trunk, and roof of any vehicles that were outside. Consistent dent patterns across a hood surface establish hail size in a way that is almost impossible to dispute.
Exterior Doors & Garage
Metal garage doors and exterior doors show clear hail strikes. Photograph straight-on and at an angle with raking light if possible. The shadows in the dents help show impact depth.
Fencing & Wood Surfaces
Hail leaves distinctive marks on wood fencing, decking, and painted surfaces. If the stain is damaged, if wood is splintered, if paint is chipped — photograph it all.
Why This Documentation Matters So Much
Here is the situation we see constantly: a homeowner files a claim. Weeks later, an adjuster comes out. The hail is long gone. The leaves have been raked. The yard has been cleaned up. And now the adjuster — looking at a dry, clean property on a sunny day — has to take your word for what fell on your house three weeks ago.
If the adjuster is inclined to be thorough and fair, this works fine. If the adjuster is under pressure to minimize the claim, or if they simply did not look carefully enough, they have every opportunity to attribute what they find to wear and tear, normal weathering, or a storm that was not severe enough to cause structural damage.
Insurance companies use wear and tear as a reason to deny or minimize claims far more often on older roofs. Their position is that what looks like damage is really just the roof showing its age.
The counterargument is visual and chronological: here is my property before the storm, and here is my property after. Hail on the ground. Consistent denting across soft metals. Window screens with fresh punctures. These things do not happen from wear and tear. They happen from hail. And if you have the photos to prove a significant storm hit your address on a specific date — that argument becomes very difficult to make.
That is what your first-hour documentation accomplishes. It takes the before-and-after out of the realm of speculation and puts it on record.
What NOT to Do in the First 48 Hours
Do not go on your roof. Wet shingles after a storm are extremely slippery. You can cause additional damage that complicates your claim. Leave roof inspection to a professional with the right equipment.
Do not clean up the storm evidence before you document it. Every leaf on the ground, every piece of hail in the gutter, every stripped branch — photograph it first. Then clean up.
Do not file a claim before you understand what you have. Get a contractor inspection first. Filing the wrong type of claim, or filing with incomplete information, creates problems that are difficult to fix after the fact.
Do not sign anything from a contractor who shows up unsolicited immediately after a storm. Storm chasers are real. Take your time. Verify license, verify reviews, verify the company is actually based in Oklahoma before you commit to anything.
Do not assume the storm did not damage your roof because you cannot see anything from the ground. Hail damage on asphalt shingles is often not visible from street level. Granule loss, mat fractures, and impact bruising require a professional to find and document correctly.
How to Verify a Roofing Contractor in Oklahoma After a Storm
After a major hail event, OKC and Tulsa see an influx of out-of-state contractors who move in, work the storm, and leave. Some do quality work. Many do not. And after they are gone, your warranty is worthless.
Verify their Oklahoma roofing license at the Oklahoma Construction Industries Board database: verifyroofing.cib.ok.gov. If they are not licensed, do not hire them.
Check their Google reviews — and look at the dates. A company with reviews only from storm season may be a storm chaser operation with no local presence.
Ask where they are based. A contractor with a physical presence in OKC or Tulsa is accountable to the local market. One who drove in from another state after a storm is not.
Ask who will be on your roof. The contractor you meet should be willing to be present for your adjuster meeting and personally involved in the documentation process — not just someone who will hand the job off to a crew.
One Final Thought
Oklahoma storms do not give you a lot of warning. But they do give you a window — a short one — right after they pass, when the evidence of what happened is sitting right in front of you, ready to be documented.
Most homeowners miss that window. They go inside, check on their family, watch the news, and wait for things to dry out. By the time they think about documentation, the hail has melted, the yard has been cleaned up, and the only record of what happened is whatever their phone captured during the storm itself.
The homeowners who have the best claim outcomes are the ones who walk outside the moment the storm stops and start recording. Hail in hand. Tape measure in the other. Phone on video.
That is it. That is the whole thing. Do that first, and everything else becomes easier.