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We've been to numerous homes in the area in recent weeks to assess various types of damage due to the April 16th storms.
I thought is might be helpful to share some of what we've found with our CD friends:
1-The recent high winds have stressed many of the roof shingle tabs and weakened them significantly. Even though the shingles did not blow off the roof, the tabs were bent up so far that many of the shingles are broken and are just barely attached. I found this out personally while inspecting a roof last week and had a large area of shingles slide out from under my feet. Fortunately the roof slope was not steep and I was able to maintain my footing. You can imagine the surprised look on the homeowners face when they saw me "ice skating" across their roof. (The YouTube film crews were not on the jobsite.)
Our recommendation: check the tabs of some of your shingles to confirm that the shingles were not broken and that the seal strips (little strips of asphalt) under each tab are firmly engaged (stuck) to the shingle below it.
2-Lots of roof ridge vents (both metal and plastic) were not secured with the proper length of fasteners (usually nails; but sometimes staples) and as a result blew off many homes.
Our recommendation: check all the ridge vents by gently tugging on the edges. If the ridge vent comes off in your hand, nail it back with longer nails.
3-Many trees (especially pines) look perfectly healthy and appear to have weathered the winds without damage. What we have found is that some of the pines were stressed about 30 feet off the ground when the limb canopy at the top of the tree was violently pushed back and forth but the rootball held the tree firmly in the ground.
Our recommendation: Look for vertical cracks in the tree's bark about 20 to 30 feet up. Take a rubber mallet and firmly strike the trunk of the tree in various places. Listen to the sound to determine if there are fractures in the trunk that might indicate a damaged tree.
4-Broken branches lodged in the tops of trees can fall when you least expect; even on a calm day with no wind.
Our recommendation: if you have broken limbs hung in a tree (sometimes called "widow-makers", rope off the area and keep family and pets away until the limb falls or you can have it removed.
We're trying to spread the word to anyone who will listen. The aftermath of the recent storms will be on-going for several months; even if it appears that your home escaped damage there could be danger waiting.
This tornado reminded me of a bad storm w/ some small tornadoes in Fayetteville a long time ago. (25 years?) We were out of town at the time. RIght before the storm Our house sitter had a narrow encounter with some burglars who were going out the back door while she was coming in the front. They were caught and all our goods recovered. A few days after we got home, we discovered that the house had been struck by lightning...took us a few days to figure it out, a lamp wasn't working and we discovered the outlet plate was blown right off the wall and of course the outlet no longer worked...struck right through the brick. Then we realized we had a damaged tree just as J Trent described. When the tree man came to give us an estimate, he could see roof damage we couldn't see from the ground. Insurance company agreed and paid for it all.
So even if you don't think anything was damaged...you might be surprised!
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