Fortifying Your Home for a Hurricane

Living along the coast is a great way to enjoy the beach. There are many people that love their

coastal living and would not trade it for anything but when one lives on the coast it is important

to be prepared for a hurricane to ensure that any damage that occurs is minimal.

Get to the Windows

First, you want to make sure that you are

going to secure all of your windows.

Securing the windows in your home will

minimize the wind that is able to get into

your home and ensure that the hurricane

damage that occurs to your home is kept

on the outside of your home.

When the windows are not going to be

secured or fortified, the winds or the

debris that fly through the air may crash

into the windows and shatter them. Securing the windows with storm shutters is often the best

way to keep the wind on the outside of your home.

While you are fortifying your home, you may want to look into nailing wood outside of your

windows. Some people like to nail the wood on the outside and on the inside of their windows to

ensure that they are going to be able to protect themselves with two different layers.

Secure Your Roof

Second, many people have seen footage of roofs blowing off in hurricanes. When you live in an

area where there are hurricanes you have to be sure that your roof is going to be secure and that

the roof is not going to blow off because of the strong winds that are pushing on it.

There are simple metal tie-down straps that are used to keep roofs on the building that they have

been built for. After you purchase these tie-downs, you can then make sure that you are going to

be able to install them when there is a hurricane warning in the area.

Reinforce Everything You Can

Third, the garage door is another area of your home that is going to need to be fortified

completely. When you are fortifying your garage doors, you should make sure that you invest in

a sturdy garage door that is made to stand up and stay strong throughout a storm.

When you need a quick form of reinforcement, you

should make sure that you secure to 2x4’s across the

inside of your garage door. This will give your door

the extra support required to stay strong when strong

winds are blowing against your door.

There are many people that do not do this, as a result

you will see garage door blow into a house during a

storm. When this occurs, the home is often going to

fill with wind pressure and the strong winds that fill

the home can cause permanent and very expensive storm damage.

When you understand what needs to be reinforced and how you are going to reinforce it all, you

will be able to get the reinforcements up as soon as you know that a hurricane is coming. This

way, you can be sure that your home is as secure and safe as possible.

Photo Credit: I Am Not I, I Am Not I