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Hurricane Season Home Prep Checklist

Every June the same thing happens. The forecasters start talking, somebody puts a cone on the TV, and half of Tampa Bay drives to the store at the same time for plywood and water. By then it's late. The folks who do well in a storm did most of their work back in the spring, when there was no pressure and no line at the register.

I've patched up plenty of homes after storms. A lot of that damage was preventable. Not all of it, a bad enough storm wins no matter what you do, but a real share of it came down to a loose shingle nobody fixed, a gutter packed with leaves, a tree limb that should've come down two years ago. Here's how I think about getting a house ready, split into the work you do before the season and the work you do once your name is on the forecast.

Do this before the season, while it's calm

This is the part that matters most and the part people skip. Once a storm is named, half these jobs are too late to do right.

• Get the roof looked at. Loose, lifted, or missing shingles are how wind gets under your roof and starts peeling. Either get up there yourself if you're able, or have someone check it. The roof is the whole ballgame in a hurricane. If it goes, the water follows.
• Sort out your window and door protection now. If you've got shutters, find them, count them, and make sure they actually fit and the hardware's all there. If you've got impact glass, you're ahead. If you've got nothing, decide what your plan is before the store sells out. Pre-cut plywood and labeled panels beat scrambling in the dark.
• Trim the trees back off the house. Any branch hanging over your roof is a problem waiting for a windy day. Dead limbs come down first. This is a job for the off-season, because no tree crew is available the week before a storm, and you don't want one working over your house in the wind anyway.
• Clear the gutters and the drains. Hurricanes are a water problem as much as a wind problem. If your gutters are packed and your yard drains are clogged, that water has nowhere to go but into your house. Run a hose and watch where it actually flows. It should move away from the foundation, not pool against it.
• Document the whole house for insurance. This one saves people real money and almost nobody does it until it's too late. Walk every room with your phone, video and photos, open the cabinets, get the serial numbers off the big stuff, and shoot the outside from every side. Save it somewhere that isn't only on the phone in your pocket. After a storm, a claim with before pictures goes a whole lot smoother than your word against theirs.
• Check your seals and weatherstripping. Wind-driven rain finds every gap around your windows and doors. Cracked caulk and worn weatherstripping is an open invitation. This is cheap to fix in April and expensive to ignore in September.
• Build your supplies early. Water, batteries, a real flashlight, a charged power bank, your meds, cash, a battery radio, food that doesn't need the stove. Buy it in the spring and you'll never stand in the panic line. A week of water per person is the number people forget.

Once a storm is named, work the list

When something's actually headed this way, the calm-season prep pays off and you switch into the fast jobs.

• Put up the shutters or panels. Do it early, while it's daylight and the wind's still down. Trying to hang plywood in the first gusts is how people get hurt.
• Bring in everything that can fly. Patio furniture, the grill, potted plants, the kids' toys, trash cans, anything in the yard that wind can turn into a missile. If it can't come inside, tie it down hard or put it in the pool. A loose chair through your neighbor's window is on you.
• Fill the tubs and jugs. Water for flushing and washing if the supply goes out. Top off the cars with gas before the stations run dry.
• Charge everything and turn the fridge down cold. Phones, power banks, the works. Set the fridge and freezer colder so the food lasts longer if the power drops.
• Take your photos again. A quick walk-through right before the storm gives you a dated record of the condition your house was in going in. That's gold on a claim.
• Know when to stop and shelter. There's a point where the job is done and the only smart move is to get inside, away from windows, and wait it out. Don't be the guy on the roof when the bands start coming in.

The things people forget

A few that catch folks every year.

• The garage door. It's often the weakest big opening on the house, and when it fails the wind gets inside and lifts the roof from underneath. If yours isn't rated for the wind, bracing it is worth a look before the season.
• What happens after. Plenty of damage shows up days later, a slow drip from where water got in, a soft spot in a ceiling. Don't assume you're fine because the lights came back on. Walk the house and look.
• The stuff you can't see in a storm hits harder if the house was already remodeled wrong. A bathroom or addition built without the right waterproofing and tie-downs is a weak point a storm will find. If you're remodeling, build it to take a beating. (More on that here: remodeling with hurricanes in mind.)

Why steady beats scrambling

Here's the honest part. The before-season list is the one that actually protects your home, and it's the one almost nobody keeps up with year after year. The roof check, the gutter clear, the tree trim, the seal inspection. It's not hard work. It's just easy to put off when there's no storm on the map and the sun's out.

That's the same reason we run a maintenance plan. Somebody who knows what a Florida home needs comes by on a schedule, runs the checklist, and leaves you a plain report with photos of anything that needs attention, well before a storm tests it. Storm prep stops being a panic and becomes something that's already mostly handled. (For the full year-round version, here's the Florida home maintenance checklist.)

One next step. Want the storm-season work caught and handled before the cone shows up? See how our home maintenance plan works. It's built for Tampa Bay homes and what this climate does to them. No pressure, just a straight look at whether it's a fit.

*Related: Remodeling with hurricanes in mind · The Florida home maintenance checklist · What we build*