After the storm
After a hurricane, check your roof from the ground and from inside — never from on top of it. Look for displaced or missing tiles and shingles, lifted or peeled edges, bent flashing and gutters, debris impact, and any new interior staining, drips or daylight in the attic. Photograph everything before repairs.
Read this first
This is the one instruction on this page that is not a judgement call. A roof that has just taken hurricane winds is not the surface it was a week ago. Fasteners may have partially withdrawn, decking may be soft or unsupported where water has entered, loose tiles slide without warning, and wet membrane is slippery. Add downed lines, standing water and debris around the building and the risk is real rather than theoretical.
Everything useful you can do yourself is done from the ground and from inside the house. Everything else is done by someone equipped, trained and insured for work at height. If any part of your roof is visibly sagging, or you can see daylight through the deck from the attic, treat the space below it as unsafe until it has been looked at.
From the ground
Walk the perimeter of the building in daylight with a phone camera. These are the things visible from ground level, by covering type.
Tile
Look along ridges, hips and edges first — uplift concentrates there. Tiles out of alignment, sitting proud, visibly cracked or simply gone are the clearest signal. Tile fragments in the yard, in gutters or on a patio mean pieces left the roof even if you cannot see the gap.
Shingle
Missing shingles leave a lighter rectangle that is visible from the street. Tabs that have lost their seal may lie flat again but flutter in wind. Heavy granule loss collecting at downspout outlets means the surface has been abraded.
Metal
Look for panels that have lifted at an edge or a ridge, seams that have opened, dented or creased panels from debris impact, and on exposed-fastener systems, screws standing proud of the panel line.
All roofs
Bent, lifted or torn metal at valleys, wall junctions, chimneys and roof edges. Gutters pulled away from the fascia, sagging, or full of roofing material. Because most leaks are flashing failures, damaged metal matters more than a broken tile.
All roofs
Fallen branches or wind-borne debris still resting on the roof, punctures, and impact marks. Anything sitting on the roof is a load and often a puncture — note it and photograph it, but do not go up to remove it.
Low-slope
On a flat or low-slope roof visible from an upper window or an adjacent building, look for standing water days after rain, blistered or torn membrane, and drains and scuppers choked with debris. Blocked drainage after a storm adds load fast.
From inside
Interior evidence is often ahead of exterior evidence, because water tracks along framing and insulation before it announces itself. Go room by room in daylight and look at ceilings and the tops of walls for new staining, staining that has changed shape or grown since the last rain, bubbling or blistered paint, and damp patches around light fixtures or ceiling fans.
If your attic is safely accessible from a ladder inside the house, look — from the hatch, without walking on ceiling joists — for daylight through the deck, wet or compressed insulation, water tracks on rafters and staining on the underside of the sheathing. Daylight through the deck means the covering and the barrier beneath it have both been breached, and it needs a contractor promptly rather than eventually.
A musty smell in upper rooms or closets with no visible stain is worth taking seriously. It usually means moisture has been present long enough to affect materials that are not visible.
Limits
Most of it, honestly — and being clear about that is more useful than a longer checklist. From ground level you cannot see the condition of the underlayment, which on a tile roof is the layer that actually keeps water out. You cannot tell whether fasteners have withdrawn, whether the deck has taken moisture, whether shingle seals have broken, whether flashings have been levered loose behind a covering that still sits flat, or whether a low-slope membrane has split at a seam.
That is not a reason to skip the ground check. It is the reason the ground check is a triage step rather than a diagnosis: it tells you whether to call today or this week, and it produces the photographs you will want later. The diagnosis itself comes from someone on the roof. Roofing 101 explains which layer does which job, and why an intact-looking covering proves so little.
Damage versus lookalike
Several of the things most often reported as hurricane damage are, in the technical literature, something else. Knowing the difference protects you from both under-reacting and over-reacting.
Tile
The Tile Roofing Industry Alliance is explicit that broken tiles on a roof do not necessarily indicate wind uplift — in a high wind event tiles are typically broken by airborne debris. It also notes that fresh breaks can often be told from old ones by aggregate fracture, dirt accumulation, weathering of the exposed aggregate, or the presence of moss or algae.
Shingle
After Hurricane Michael, FEMA reported widespread asphalt shingle damage on post-code buildings and found that most hip and ridge shingles observed in debris piles lacked evidence of roofing cement. The same hip-and-ridge pattern was the most prevalent shingle damage reported after Hurricane Ian. If your shingle roof lost anything, look at the ridge line first.
Shingle
Per IIBEC, a sealed-down shingle affected by wind leaves lasting evidence — creases, folds, tears, or missing shingles or portions of them. Unsealing on its own is attributed to manufacturing inconsistency, improper or cold-weather installation, adhesive contamination, ageing and thermal cycling. It still matters, but it is not proof of what the storm did.
Shingle
Haag Engineering, whose definitions are the industry benchmark, defines functional damage as diminished water-shedding or reduced service life, and rejects granule loss alone: granule loss from a location struck by a simulated hailstone that did not fracture the reinforcement did not affect service life. Actual hail damage is a fracture — felt as a soft spot, like a bruise in an apple.
Metal
The Metal Construction Association defines oil canning as a perceived waviness in the flat areas of metal panels, an inherent characteristic of light-gauge cold-formed metal, and notes that thermally driven waves can appear and disappear daily as the sun moves. FEMA found metal roof damage in Irma was generally limited to roof edges, with the panel field intact.
Underlayment
IBHS defines a sealed roof deck as one where the seams between decking pieces are sealed so water cannot flow into the attic if the covering is lost. It states that an unsealed deck allows up to 60 percent of the rain falling on a compromised roof to enter the attic, and that a properly installed sealed deck can reduce water entry by as much as 95 percent. FEMA documented a house in Michael protected exactly that way after debris punctured its metal covering.
Next steps
Four steps, in this sequence.
Step 01
Move people and belongings out from under active leaks, contain dripping water, and cut power to any circuit where water is reaching fixtures or wiring. Stay off the roof.
Step 02
Dated photos and video: the building from several angles, close-ups of visible damage, every interior stain, and any debris. Do this before anything is moved, cleaned or repaired.
Step 03
Tarping or emergency patching stops further interior damage while a permanent repair is scheduled. It is height work on a compromised surface — have a licensed contractor do it.
Step 04
A written condition report records what is damaged, what is sound, and what the assembly beneath looks like. It is yours to use however you choose.
Being straight with you
We inspect roofs and document what we find in writing. What we do not do is tell you what your policy covers, advise you on how to present a claim, or promise that a claim will be approved — none of that is a roofing contractor's to decide, and anyone who guarantees an outcome after a storm is telling you something they cannot know. Coverage questions belong with your insurer or a licensed public adjuster.
The weeks after a hurricane bring out unfamiliar contractors working door to door with urgency, deposits and paperwork to sign on the spot. Slow down. Check licensing, get the scope in writing, and be wary of anyone who needs a decision today. One check is not a judgement call at all: Florida Statute 489.147 prohibits a contractor from offering a residential property owner a rebate, gift, cash, coupon or waiver of an insurance deductible in exchange for a roof inspection or an insurance claim. If someone offers you a free roof or a waived deductible, they are offering something the law bars them from providing. Our five checks for choosing a roofing contractor were written largely with this period in mind.
Sources
Questions
From the ground, look for tiles that are missing, slipped out of line, visibly cracked, or sitting at a different angle from their neighbors — especially along hips, ridges and eaves, which is where FEMA’s Hurricane Irma assessment team found tile failures concentrated, and where it traced them to mortar that had not fully embedded the hip and ridge tiles rather than to the tile itself. Note one thing carefully: broken tiles are not by themselves evidence of wind uplift. The Tile Roofing Industry Alliance states that in a high wind event tiles are typically broken by impact from airborne debris. What you cannot see from the ground at all is the underlayment beneath the tile, and that is the layer that actually keeps water out — so an intact-looking tile field does not prove the roof is sound.
No. The National Roofing Contractors Association advises homeowners to contact a roofing professional and never climb up on a roof to inspect it themselves, and says a homeowner inspection should only be performed from ground level because the risk of falling is too great without proper safety systems. Tile is the worst case: the Tile Roofing Industry Alliance recommends that only trained, insured professionals walk a tile roof, and one Florida tile manufacturer’s warranty document puts it plainly — walking on or putting pressure on tiles can cause damage, and the recommendation is to stay off your roof. After a storm the surface is worse still: fasteners may have withdrawn, decking may be soft, and there may be downed lines or standing water nearby. Use binoculars or a phone camera from ground level.
New water staining on ceilings or the tops of walls, staining that grows after each rain, bubbling or peeling paint, a musty smell in closets or upper rooms, damp insulation, and — the clearest sign of all — daylight visible through the roof deck from inside the attic. Interior evidence often appears before anything is obvious outside, because water tracks along framing before it stains.
Yes. Wind damage is frequently invisible from the ground. Fasteners can withdraw partially, sealed shingle tabs can break their bond and re-lay flat, flashings can be levered loose, and mortar or adhesive at ridges can fail while the pieces stay in place. Roofs that survive one storm looking untouched are commonly the ones that leak in the next ordinary rainstorm. A post-storm inspection is worth it even when nothing looks wrong.
Protect the interior and the people in it: move or cover what is beneath the leak, put a container under active dripping, and turn off electricity to any circuit where water is reaching fixtures or outlets. Photograph the damage before you move or clean anything. Then arrange a temporary dry-in — tarping or emergency patching — through a licensed contractor. Do not attempt roof tarping yourself.
Dated photographs and video of the exterior from several angles at ground level, close-ups of any visible damage, every interior stain or drip, damaged contents, and debris on the property. Keep receipts for anything you spend on temporary protection. Written documentation of the roof condition matters most when it exists both before and after the storm, which is the argument for a routine annual inspection record.
We inspect roofs and document condition in writing, and that report is yours to use however you choose. Whether damage is covered, and on what terms, is a matter between you and your insurer — no roofing contractor can determine coverage or promise an outcome. Be sceptical of anyone who tells you otherwise after a storm.
Written for South Florida roofs under the Florida Building Code, and in Miami-Dade and Broward under the High Velocity Hurricane Zone requirements that apply there. This is general guidance and not a substitute for an inspection of your roof. Related: roof repair services and roof advice.
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