Services
Document a loss
Support a claim
For carriers and employers
Service areas
Middle Tennessee
- Nashville
- Clarksville
- Murfreesboro
- Franklin
- Hendersonville
- Smyrna
- Spring Hill
- Gallatin
- Lebanon
- Columbia
- Brentwood
- Mount Juliet
- La Vergne
- Cookeville
East Tennessee
West Tennessee
Tornado Damage Documentation Across Tennessee
After a tornado, a property can go from standing structure to cleared lot in a matter of days. Delator Claims Division records the site in between for carriers, catastrophe teams, attorneys, owners and tenants who need to show what was there.
- Coverage
- 95 of 95 counties
- Dispatch
- 24 / 7 / 365
- Metro response
- Under 60 min avg.
- Statewide
- 4-hour guarantee
What this service covers
Tornado loss differs from other wind loss in scale and in kind. Roof structures are lifted off wall plates, walls rack or fall outward, garages collapse, and whole buildings shift on or leave their foundations. Contents end up in the yard, in trees and on other people's lots. Vehicles are moved. What remains of a house may be an interior hallway and a slab with anchor bolts and plumbing stubs.
Recording that condition is partly photography and partly mapping. An investigator works from fixed points that survived, such as the slab corners, driveway and street, and locates the remains of the structure and its contents against them. Delator records what is present and where. It does not rate the tornado, decide whether a structure is repairable, separate wind loss from other causes, or place a value on anything.
Who requests tornado site records, and when
- A carrier's catastrophe team needs a damaged address recorded ahead of an adjuster who is several days out.
- A municipality or volunteer group has scheduled lot clearing and the owner wants the remains recorded first.
- An owner is hospitalized or displaced out of town and cannot be present before demolition is ordered.
- A landlord and tenant each need a record of the building and of the tenant's belongings as they were found.
- Counsel anticipates a later disagreement about whether a foundation or framing that was left standing could be reused.
What a tornado site record includes
- Slab and foundation layout
- Measurements of the footprint with photographs of anchor bolts, straps, sill remnants and plumbing stubs, showing what stayed attached to the foundation and what did not.
- Remaining framing and walls
- Standing, racked and fallen wall sections photographed from outside the collapse zone, with lean direction and separation at corners recorded where they can be seen safely.
- Debris field direction and reach
- The spread of building materials across the lot and beyond, measured from the foundation to the farthest identifiable pieces that can be tied to the structure.
- Contents where they landed
- Appliances, furniture and identifiable personal property photographed in place before anyone gathers them, including items on neighboring lots visible from the subject property.
- Displaced vehicles and trailers
- Cars, boats, campers and utility trailers at their final positions, with distance from the driveway or parking pad and visible body damage on each side.
- Access and site conditions
- Road closures, downed lines, posted placards and barricades as encountered, which explain what could and could not be approached on the day of the visit.
From request to delivered record
- RequestCall dispatch or submit the request form with the location, loss type and urgency.
- DeployDispatch assigns the nearest available licensed field investigator through the statewide network.
- DocumentPhotographs, video, measurements and factual notes are captured once the scene is safe to work.
- PreserveFiles are timestamped, organized and kept in their original form with a record of who captured them.
- ReportThe package is delivered securely to the requesting party, typically the same day.
Clearing begins fast, and it is usually done by someone else
In a tornado path the owner often does not control the timing. Road crews push debris off the right of way in the first hours. Utility contractors cut and remove anything touching their lines. Volunteers arrive with chainsaws and skid steers and move material to the curb, where it is collected. Unsafe structures may be posted and then taken down. Rain falls into opened buildings in the days after and changes what the contents look like.
Each pass removes information about where things came to rest and what condition they were in. A foundation that has been scraped clean no longer shows which walls were anchored or which way they fell. An Emergency deployment puts an investigator on site in 30 minutes to 4 hours where roads are passable, and the four-hour statewide deployment guarantee applies in every Tennessee county. Access restrictions set by authorities are respected.
Safety limits and the questions that come later
Tornado sites are hazardous. Investigators do not enter collapsed or partially collapsed structures, do not walk on compromised floors or roofs, and do not go near downed lines or areas closed by emergency personnel. Work is done from the perimeter and from stable ground, and the field notes list any area that could not be approached. A record with stated gaps is more useful than one that implies it covered everything.
Later disputes on tornado claims tend to concern extent and reuse. Whether a slab, a chimney or a surviving wing can be incorporated into a rebuild, whether a detached building was a total loss, and which contents were present are all questions that depend on what the site looked like before clearing. Delator supplies the record. Engineers, adjusters, appraisers and courts answer the questions.
On this assignment Delator field personnel record what is physically present: photographs, video, measurements and factual notes. They do not adjust, appraise or value the loss, do not determine coverage, cause or fault, and do not represent any party to the claim.
Delator Claims Division is not a law firm, an insurer or an engineering firm, and nothing on this page is legal advice.
Common questions about this service
Can you reach a property while the area is still restricted?
Investigators follow the instructions of emergency personnel and do not cross closures. If a road or neighborhood is closed, the visit is made as soon as access is permitted. The requesting party can help by confirming whether residents or their representatives are being admitted and under what conditions.
Do you inventory personal property?
The investigator photographs contents as found and can record identifying details that are visible, such as make and model plates. Delator does not prepare a valued contents inventory, assign prices or ages, or decide what is salvageable. That list is prepared by the owner or the adjuster.
The house has already been demolished. Is there anything left to record?
Often there is. The foundation, driveway, remaining trees, debris piles awaiting pickup and any contents moved to storage can be recorded. The notes state clearly that the visit followed demolition, so that no one mistakes the record for the original condition.
Can you document many addresses for one carrier after a single tornado?
Yes. Carriers and third-party administrators can assign multiple addresses, and each receives its own photographs, video, measurements and notes. Field personnel are licensed Tennessee private investigators and the work is not subcontracted to unaffiliated third parties. Capacity on a given day depends on access and travel conditions.
Available statewide, including
Every Tennessee county is covered. See the deployment map for typical response tiers by county.
Request documentation anywhere in Tennessee
Dispatch is staffed around the clock. For time-sensitive scenes, calling is fastest; the request form works for routine and scheduled assignments.