Several Market Street businesses are dealing with thousands of dollars of damage and are navigating insurance claims Friday, a day after after a powerful thunderstorm caused significant destruction.
 
Thursday evening’s thunderstorm produced what the National Weather Service (NWS) called a microburst -- an accelerated downdraft of air that can cause severe and concentrated wind gusts -- near the intersection of Market Street and New Centre Drive.
 
Thunderstorms are common during the summer, but the intensity of this microburst was unusual for the area, said Mark Bacon, a meteorologist with NWS’s Wilmington office.
 
“Our severe weather tends to be on the lower end of the scale, and that is especially true in the summer,” he said. “Our severest weather is usually in late spring.”
 
Several businesses reported losing power for about an hour after the storm hit, and much of the damage created by the storm was to trees and the marquee signs that line Market Street.
 
“We lost power for about an hour, and two people were stuck in the elevator for 30 minutes,” said Lisa Brent, general manager at the Wingate by Wyndham hotel at 5126 Market. “But everyone was pretty jovial about it. We had a couple staying at the hotel from the Netherlands who had never seen a storm like that before and they said ‘it was amazing.’”
 
The most obvious damage that can be seen at the Wingate hotel was the toppling of the hotel’s large marquee by the street.
 
The sign costs anywhere from $50,000 to $65,000 and might take longer than two weeks to replace, Brent said, adding that the sign was covered by insurance.
 
The microburst produced 90 mph wind and had a path of 0.9 miles, according to the NWS.
 
“It felt like the whole building was shaking,” said Dawn Hames, owner of Hieronymus Seafood Restaurant & Oyster Bar, 5035 Market St. “People who were on the outside of the building during the storm couldn’t open the doors to get in.”
 
Hames said her restaurant was left with no structural damage but still had to close after the storm due to the severely damaged oak trees surrounding her parking lot that created liability issues. The restaurant was open at regular hours today.
 
The most significant damage to Hieronymus was also to its sign, though it is significantly smaller than Wingate’s.
 
“The big thing for us was our marquee was destroyed,” she said. “The marquees are very expensive, like $6,000 to $7,000, and will take about two weeks to fix.”
 
One business that was hit especially hard was Once Upon a Child (at left), a consignment store located in the shopping center adjacent to the intersection of Market Street and New Centre Drive.
 
The store’s windows were shattered by the wind, and the powerful gusts knocked over several racks of clothing and other merchandise. Ceiling tiles also fell, and the back of the store was flooded by water that came through the roof, according to Megan Monroe, a store manager.
 
“I talked to other owners nearby, and it seems we got the worst of it,” she said. “We are not going to open for a couple days.”
 
Monroe said the delay in opening was primarily due to the store having to wait for inspections from insurance companies who want to see the damage before it is cleaned up and repaired.
 
It has been frustrating to be “just kind of sitting here,” Monroe said, while the store has to navigate its own insurance claims and cooperate with the owner of the shopping center who also has insurance claims.
 
Wingate hotel is also facing complex insurance claims after the storm left several guests’ cars damaged from fallen trees. The trees were not on hotel property -- the trees are on PNC Bank property, which is adjacent to Wingate’s parking lot -- causing confusion about who should put in insurance claims, Brent said.
 
“We don’t know whose responsibility it is yet,” she said. “It was an act of God, so we didn’t have any control, but we still had to file a claim.”