Preparing for a Hurricane?

We went to an AARP workshop about hurricane preparedness last year. All Island Rollshutter was recommended to put up barriers for windows during a dreaded storm. Actually, there aren't a lot of companies that do this here so we decided to just give them a call.

Their president came out and assessed that most of our windows could be barricaded, but not all. We just wouldn't have a place to store really big barriers. Therefore, we opted for astroguard hurricane fabric.

They would be secured with these strong straps that would be screwed into the wall or concrete.

I sure hope they work. They look strong, but will they hold up to a hurricane. I don't know.

They had to drill screw holes into the concrete pillars to hold up the fabric which left crumbly divots. It was rather unsightly and people did notice.

I was also worried that the unprotected concrete would weather and deteriorate making the screws pop out.

We found some caulk that was supposed to work on concrete and I went to work. I used a straw to prevent the caulk from going into the screw holes and then smoothed the area.

Since we'd just had the house painted last year, I had paint to cover the caulk. I was very relieved to see that the pillars no longer looked pockmarked.

I also painted over the areas that they had patched and it did improve the appearance so I didn't notice it so much anymore.

However, we did have a few more problems. One of the astroguard fabrics was not hooked up on 3 sides like they are supposed to so they'll be coming back to install more screw holes.

Ah well... I'll deal with that when it happens. I just hope all this helps when a real hurricane hits.

POSTSCRIPT: Well, now that we're all rather quarantined, we haven't had the company out to correct the Astroguard problem. I hope they stay in business to finish this project.