How to protect your home from a hurricane

The carnage left by Hurricane Beryl successful nan Caribbean this week is simply a stark reminder of nan demolition specified storms tin wreak connected full communities. And pinch meteorologists expecting an supra normal Atlantic hurricane play this year, astir 33 cardinal homes from Texas to Maine could look threat from nan ferocious winds, large wind surges and dense rainfall specified tempests tin produce, existent property information supplier CoreLogic estimates. 

Read connected to study what experts opportunity homeowners tin do to harden their properties against hurricanes. 

Family members study their location destroyed successful nan passing of Hurricane Beryl, successful Ottley Hall, St. Vincent and nan Grenadines, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. Lucanus Ollivierre / AP

Cover nan windows 

When clip is of nan essence, nan quickest and cheapest measurement to protect your location from a hurricane is nailing plywood crossed each nan windows. Owners who person much clip to hole tin protect windows by installing alleged rotation shutters, which a small for illustration a car shed doorway and which tally betwixt $300 and $400.

"That's going to protect you from nan debris flying into your window," said Michael Gridley, a residential building professor astatine SUNY Morrisville successful upstate New York, noting that galore homeowners tin equine plywood aliases instal rotation shutters themselves. 

But specified fixes are impermanent and apt won't support solid from shattering and falling into your home, Joshua Parrish, a wide contractor successful Georgia, told PapaRead MoneyWatch.

Experts opportunity "roll shutters," seen present covering a home's windows successful a 3D rendering, tin protect properties from flying debris kicked up by a hurricane. Getty Images/KangeStudio

For stronger, semipermanent protection, a master tin instal hurricane windows, which typically person a alloy aliases aluminum framework and reinforced glass.

"The solid really has 2 layers of heat-treated glass, and there's integrative successful betwixt them. It will really protect you," Gridley said.

Not surprisingly, hurricane windows are costly. At $125 to $150 per quadrate feet, installing them could easy costs a homeowner betwixt $10,000 and $30,000, he noted. 

Barricade your doors

As pinch nan measures for safeguarding windows, homeowners person 3 basal options: putting up plywood, adding a larger rotation shutter aliases having a hurricane doorway installed. 

Parrish said mounting plywood connected sliding solid aliases patio doors should supply capable protection from Category 2 (wind speeds of 96–110 mph) aliases Category 3 (wind speeds 111-129 mph) hurricanes. For much powerful storms, he recommends a hurricane door. That starts pinch deciding whether to get a steel, aluminum aliases fiberglass door.

"I would thin toward getting thing for illustration fiberglass conscionable because, successful lawsuit of a dent, thing successful that family of metallic would beryllium much difficult to hole and you'd person to extremity up replacing it," Parrish said. 

Hurricane doors typically costs betwixt $2,400 and $4,000 depending connected nan building and size, Gridley said.  

Reinforce your roof

Before making immoderate changes to your roof, it's important to first cheque for soft spots successful your tile deck, nail down immoderate loose shingles and clear nan gutters truthful h2o flows quickly distant from your home, experts said. 

After nan tile checkup is done, homeowners tin mostly spell 1 of 2 routes. For those who don't person nan clip aliases money to switch nan roof, Gridley said they should see cementing nan existing shingles together. Shingles are already nailed down and stuck together pinch asphalt, but complete clip nan asphalt cracks and fades — adding cement reinforces them.

Another, pricier action — but 1 that offers amended protection, including from an security position — is to instal a metallic roof.

"It fastens down, it has little room for [wind] pickup — it's going to beryllium nan champion option," Gridley said.

Experts opportunity a metallic tile is little prone to being lifted disconnected a location successful a hurricane.  Dan Reynolds Photography/Getty Images

Metal roofs are installed truthful location are nary "seams wherever upwind tin get underneath and commencement lifting that disconnected nan building," Parrish said, adding, "It's astir apt going to beryllium double nan costs of a emblematic shingle roof. But it's going to past you almost everlastingly — 40, 50, 60 years."

A 2,000 square-foot metallic tile costs an mean of astir $27,000, according to Architectural Digest.

Seal nan foundation

Examine nan instauration of your location and nan walls of your basement aliases crawl abstraction for cracks, nan experts said. If you announcement deep, agelong cracks, see hiring a waterproofing institution to seal them.

It's captious to get cracks fixed because location could beryllium h2o pressing against a instauration wall — structural consequence that could lead to flooding during a hurricane, Parrish said. 

"That's further h2o unit beating against your location and, if it's terrible enough, it could origin different issues, and now you person a bigger problem connected your hands," Parrish said. 

In:
• Storm Damage
• Hurricane
• Homeowners