What you need to do is to quickly assess the leakage risk of the house. If you find the source of real or potential leakage, please deal with it. The following will help you determine whether the building is prone to leaks after the wind blows, and if so, what measures you can take to reduce water ingress.

Your house has lost some roof covering

When the weather of the roof is lost (the raincoat of the building), you need to assess the vulnerability/sensitivity of the house to water leakage within a few days so that you can decide what to do and complete. Without making the house very fragile, some roof coverings may be lost. In addition, if the roof tiles are lost, but the waterproof lining is still intact, there may not be water leakage.

Assess damage

Just because there is water in your house or no water is found, it does not necessarily mean that it comes from your roof, or if it comes from the roof, it will leak in subsequent rainfall. The water may not enter because of the loss of roofing material but from some other entry route. Alternative ways to enter the water include:

1. wind-driven water (WDR) through soffits at eaves even if they are still in place and seemingly protected by the roof, soffits at gable end (frequently a more important but and somewhat hidden risk as compared to eave soffits).
2. Chimneys, flashing, gable end vents, roof vents that have blown off, roof vents still in place, WDR through sidewalls, WDR from inadequate flashing (inadequate because it was not really designed to deal with extremely high winds). Some of these points of entry may not be important unless there is another strong wind event.

It is obvious that the roof material has been lost. On the other hand, it may be difficult to see part of the roof from the ground, or you may not be close enough to the roof area to assess the importance of the lack of a roof. As a last resort, if you can do this safely, you can climb the roof. If your body is not adapted to the task, sliding, or wet, or if you have a concrete or clay tile roof, please do not go up. Even if all roof coverings are installed in place, the roof will leak because leaks often occur around, above, and below the rain, especially during heavy rains or prolonged rainfall. Such leaks are difficult to detect.

Possible water source in the house

In addition to the roof water source, the following are some other possible water sources in the house:

1. Ventilation holes at the end of the gable and soffits at the end of the gable.
2. Sidewalls with wooden or plywood siding.
3. The second floor of the wooden structure is located above the first floor of masonry-usually, the tide will not draw water out of the building on top of the brick.
4. Other vents are used for bathroom vents, dryer vents, range hood vents, etc.
5. The shimmering wind moved the rain.
6. The water was blown away from the soffit and then into the attic. If water appears on the outer wall under the roof or on the ceiling at the end of the gable, the source of the water should be suspected.
7. Leaking doors and windows.

Dry your house

Once storm damage occurs, there is nothing you can do except to deal with the invading water but to protect the house. The safety of you and your family is the most important issue. Remember, unless your house is far from a hurricane, your house will experience a series of strong winds and heavy rain, so different sides of the house may be the windward side at different times during the storm.

If the inside of the house has been wet, it should be checked to ensure that there is no structural damage to avoid unsafe access to certain areas of the house. See if you can prevent access to damaged parts. If you can safely enter and work at home, you need to do two things. One is to limit the increased chance of water entering your house due to the subsequent heavy rain. The second is to try to dry your house as quickly as possible. It only takes a few days for the mold to begin to grow.

If the carpet is wet and you cannot dry it quickly, remove it from the room to prevent serious mold growth. If you are lucky enough to have electricity, or because you are lucky enough to still have electricity, or because you have the opportunity to use a generator, use an AlorAir Storm Pro dehumidifier to remove as much water as possible. The AlorAir Storm Pro dehumidifier is especially useful for removing water from carpeted areas. Although a small generator will not be able to run your air conditioning system, it may be enough to run one or two dehumidifiers. Move the dehumidifier from one room to another and drain it frequently or hang it up so that it can be automatically drained to the drain or outside the house. If possible, please use it with Alorair Zeus Extreme Axial air mover to achieve maximum drying.

If you really want to be prepared, but don’t want to spend a lot of money to power equipment and air conditioners, please consider buying a portable generator with at least enough power to run one or two dehumidifiers, and make sure you also purchase a dehumidifier. It may be difficult to get a generator or dehumidifier after a storm. Please remember the rules for the safe operation of generators and do not run generators in your house or garage. Make sure that the power cord does not pass through water and do not try to plug into the main power source of the house. Conversely, if you are using a small generator, plugin each device that you want to keep running and make sure that the generator is large enough to handle the startup and continuous operation of the plugged-in device at the same time.