Do you board up your windows if a hurricane is coming? (Homestead: houses, live)

[LifeIsGood01]

Or put shutters up, do people not put anything up and get lucky to not have broken windows at the end of a category 5 storm?

[nhkev]

If a hurricane or tropical storms (winds over 60 miles an hour) I would put up my hurricane shutters. We have had storms that have lifted tables and chairs and threw them through our lanai screens. I am sure there could be some type of yard debris that gets thrown with enough force to break a window. I have no plans on putting them on for this upcoming storm as it doesn't appear to be close enough at this time to cause that type of damage. I would be more concerned about flooding and securing things like boats on lifts. Make sure they are tied down or they will float off their lift and will be floating down the canal unmanned.

[NoSnow4me]

If we get hit with a cat 5, it won't matter. None of our houses will be here anymore.

My neighbors that have lived here a long time say they don't put up shutters for a tropical storm, but do for anything cat 1 or higher. We're in NW Cape near Burnt Store and Diplomat, and they said that Charley destroyed their pool cage, even though it made landfall Punta Gorda and wasn't a direct hit here. Another neighbor says he doesn't put them up until Cat 2, but that seems risky to me.

[LifeIsGood01]

Originally Posted by NoSnow4me

If we get hit with a cat 5, it won't matter. None of our houses will be here anymore.

Wastn't Andrew a category 5, it destroyed a lot of homes in the Homestead area but not all of them or in other areas.

[NoSnow4me]

It was an exaggeration, but not by a lot. We do have stricter building codes than they did back then, so hopefully newer houses would fare a little better. I still live under the assumption that if a cat 5 comes our way, I get far far away and don't expect there to be anything left to come back to though.

[Sweetbottoms]

Only if it's a dead hit head on.

[LifeIsGood01]

Originally Posted by NoSnow4me

It was an exaggeration, but not by a lot. We do have stricter building codes than they did back then, so hopefully newer houses would fare a little better. I still live under the assumption that if a cat 5 comes our way, I get far far away and don't expect there to be anything left to come back to though.

I looked it up and at the time they thought Andrew was a 4, but 10 years later with all the data in it was classified a 5, and has to reach the 5 sustained winds for only one minute to qualify as 5. There have only been 3 cat 5 in the last 100 years to hit the US so they are very rare.

[Taratova]

Charlie was first reported as a cat 1, but after looking at all the damage it stands as a cat 4 today. It went over to Daytona and took roofs off all the way across Florida.

[Living the Florida Dream]

Just before the land-based weather station instrument cluster was destroyed, Andrew was last measured as a high Category 4. That was before the eyewall even made landfall, ... and the winds went up significantly when it fully came ashore. It was easily able to be extrapolated to a solid Category 5, and would have certainly measured as a solid Category 5 if the weather station instruments survived. The only other hurricanes to make landfall as a category 5 in the U.S. are Camille in 1969 and the great Keys hurricane of 1935 that came ashore near Islamorada.
There have been many hurricanes that reached Category 5 status out in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, but by the time they make landfall, all but Andrew, Camille, and the 1935 Keys hurricane weakened to something less than a Category 5.

[chiluvr1228]

When we had a single family home we boarded up for Charley & Wilma but we only did so for Cat 2 or higher.