Here’s How to Protect Your Home During Hurricane Season

If you think about it for just a moment here today. Basically, hurricane season has this awful way of feeling both predictable and terrifying at the same time. It’s basically an annual occurrence now, not because every town gets hit every year, but because some part of the country usually does. It’s usually Florida, but it’s hit the Carolinas before, it’s hit NYC once before, Texas a few times, and Louisiana, you get the idea here, but it’s hit some places.

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So people end up living in this weird loop of, “Okay, it’s that time again,” while still knowing a storm can be life-changing in a matter of hours. It’s mostly people in Florida and Alabama who get this “Here we go again” attitude, but at the end of the day, it’s still a big deal because it’s far more than just a power outage.

Oh, and then there’s the insurance side of it, which somehow manages to add another layer of stress. You absolutely need to keep in mind here that more companies are pulling back from high-risk areas, or the premiums get so high that it’s like, seriously, who is paying tens of thousands a year and still feeling unsure? It’s all scary, and not everyone can or even wants to pack up their things and move. 

So instead, you need to try to protect your home, make some changes that can hopefully handle the hurricane. But what needs to be done, though?

Ideally, Try and Prep Early

Well, yes, this is incredibly obvious here. Basically, hurricane prep gets talked about like it’s just another seasonal chore, like changing air filters or cleaning gutters. But in real life, it’s emotional. It’s checking the forecast every ten minutes, it’s trying to decide what’s “overreacting” and what’s “being responsible,” it’s looking around the house thinking, “What can even be controlled here?” 

Again, if you live in an area where hurricanes are common, yeah, you’ll be pretty much treating this like another chore here. Some homeowners have a habit of preparing at the last minute, but you can’t do that; basically, you should always prepare for a hurricane because they can show up in almost any season. They don’t come out of the blue like a tornado does, sure, but you still need to prepare in advance here. 

What are the Weak Spots?

What and where are the real questions here? But storm damage rarely starts in some dramatic movie-scene way, well, it can, but thankfully it’s fairly rare. Usually, it’s the weak spots. Chances are, your home had weak spots, so where are they? For example, a loose shingle that turns into an opening, a garage door that can’t handle pressure, a window that fails, water that finds the tiniest gap and keeps going. 

Also, how far off the ground is your house? Can it handle flooding? You need to keep in mind that with hurricanes, there’s usually a lot of flooding, and more and more houses are getting house raising services done to them, so they’re stronger against flooding.

Have You Planned for Drainage?

So, just above raising the house was mentioned, it’s something more and more houses are thankfully doing now. While yes, this is something you will most likely need to look into, you also need to look into the drainage of your home in general. You already know all the damage water can do to the house, so there’s no need to explain that. 

So that’s why you need to consider drainage. So, gutters and downspouts should move water away from the house, and the ground should slope away if possible. If a basement floods easily, a sump pump should be tested before the season starts, and a battery backup can help if the power goes out. But again, raising the house is also a good idea you should look into as well.

This is a contributed post.

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