Storm Damage Restoration After Wind and Rain

Call South Florida Restoration Co after a storm puts water inside a home or condo anywhere in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach or Martin County. Storm damage restoration here is mostly about water coming in from above and from the side: a roof that lost tile or shingles, rain pushed through window frames and under sliders, gusts forcing water through soffit vents into the attic, a broken pane letting the weather straight in. The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, according to the National Hurricane Center, and summer thunderstorms bring the same kind of wind-driven rain on a smaller scale.

Tell us where the water is showing and whether the roof is covered yet, and we’ll get a licensed, insured restoration crew out to find every wet spot and dry it.

Roof, window and soffit leaks during a storm

A house can stay dry at the front door and still take on a lot of water during a storm. Wind lifts roofing, pushes rain sideways and drives it through gaps that never leak in normal weather.

Where the water got in	Where it usually ends up	What gets checked
Lifted shingles, cracked or slipped tile, torn flashing	Attic insulation, then the ceiling drywall below	The roof deck from the attic, insulation over every stain, ceiling framing and light fixtures
Soffit and ridge vents	Insulation along the edges of the attic, the top of outside walls	The ceiling along each outside wall and the wall cavities under it
Window frames and sills	Drywall under the window, the floor at the wall line	Readings down the wall to the baseboard and into the floor
Sliding glass doors	Flooring several feet into the room, baseboards on both sides	Pad and tack strip, wood or laminate edges, the drywall beside the frame
Stucco cracks and wall penetrations	Inside the wall, often with no stain at first	Readings along the inside face of the wall

Cover the roof first, then dry the inside

Drying a ceiling while the roof above it is still open gets nowhere, because the next rain band soaks it again. So the opening gets covered first, with a tarp over the damaged section of roof and plywood or heavy plastic over broken glass.

Once the roof is tarped, interior drying can start, even if the permanent roof repair is weeks away. After a major storm, roof repairs back up across the region, and a wet attic left alone for that long will smell and grow mold in this humidity. With the tarp keeping rain off the attic, the ceilings and walls can be dried now. New drywall waits until the roof is fixed and the readings say dry.

If the roof isn’t covered yet when you call, say so. Getting the opening closed comes first, and drying gets set up right behind it.

Roof leak water damage in the attic and ceilings

Roof water rarely shows where it entered. It runs down the underside of the roof deck or along a truss, soaks into the insulation and spreads across the top of the ceiling drywall before a stain ever appears. The stain in the living room can be several feet from the cracked tile that caused it.

A roof leak check starts above the ceiling for that reason. Wet insulation comes out, because blown-in or batt insulation that’s soaked stays wet and keeps feeding the drywall under it. The roof deck and trusses get read for moisture. Ceiling drywall that stays firm is often dried in place. Drywall that sags or crumbles comes down in that section, and a ceiling holding water can let go at once, so stay out from under a bulge and away from wet light fixtures. The ceiling leak guide covers the warning signs.

A lot of South Florida homes have concrete or clay tile roofs, and some condo buildings and older homes have flat roofs. A cracked or slipped tile lets rain reach the underlayment, and a flat roof can hold water behind a clogged drain. Either kind can leak a little with every afternoon shower for weeks after the storm. A slow roof leak like that does the same damage as a big one, only spread out over more time, so mention any earlier stains when you call.

Wind-driven rain at windows, doors and soffits

Wind pushes rain uphill and sideways. Water gets forced past window seals, through the weep holes in sliding door tracks and up into soffit vents that only let in air on a normal day.

Window leaks wet the drywall under the sill and run down inside the wall to the bottom plate. The paint can look fine while the wall cavity is soaked, so readings go down the wall all the way to the floor. At sliders, water travels under the threshold and into carpet pad or under wood and laminate, often several feet into the room. Pad and tack strip usually come out. Wood flooring gets read board by board to see what can be dried.

High-rise condos take more of this than houses. In its report on Hurricane Wilma, which crossed South Florida on October 24, 2005, the National Hurricane Center noted broken windows and extensive roof damage across the region, and said the upper floors of high-rise buildings likely saw stronger winds than the ground did. If you’re in a tower, the condo water damage page covers drying across several units.

Storm surge and flood water are a separate job

Rain that comes in through the roof or a window starts out cleaner than water that rises from outside. It picks up some dirt from the roof, the attic and the insulation on the way down, and it gets treated as more contaminated the longer it sits, but much of what it soaks can often be dried and kept.

Storm surge and street flooding are different. That water has crossed yards, roads and storm drains, so drywall and flooring it touched usually get cut out rather than dried. If water came up from outside, the job runs as flood cleanup. Plenty of storms do both, rain through the roof upstairs and flood water on the ground floor, and each area gets handled by its own source. The guide to flood water versus leak water explains how the two are told apart.

Photos, power and the first day after the storm

Photograph the roof, the tarp, every stained ceiling and every wet room before anything gets moved or thrown out. Dated photos of the damage and the first moisture readings are the record of what the storm did.

Drying equipment needs power, and after a big storm a lot of South Florida can be dark for days. The National Hurricane Center called Wilma’s outages the largest disruption to electrical service ever experienced in Florida at the time. Tell us on the call whether the power is on at the property, because the setup depends on it.

The EPA says wet materials dried within 24 to 48 hours are unlikely to grow mold in most cases. After a storm, with the AC off and the house closed up, that window goes fast. If you already smell must or see spots, mold remediation becomes part of the job. The hurricane water damage checklist covers the walk-through room by room.

Ceiling still dripping or the attic still wet? Call with where the water is showing, and the moisture readings can start while the roof gets covered.