How to Prepare Your Home for a Summer Storm

For most, the summer season conjures up pleasant memories and images of long days in the halcyon days of youth running around, soaking in Vitamin D, and enjoying the light breeze scattering the clouds and pollen all around.

However, depending on the area you live in and your particular geographical circumstances, you may find that summer isn’t always so pleasant. In fact, you may find yourself wracked by sudden summer storms that come on viciously and suddenly before leaving just as fast.

Thankfully, you don’t have to cower in fear at the thought of this eventuality as long as you take the necessary steps to protect yourself and your family. What are those precautions? Read on to find out.

Make a Plan

What’s absolutely critical is to have a proper emergency plan set up. Similar to how you might have a plan for evacuating the house in the case of a fire, you should also have a home emergency plan for your family for a worst-case scenario.

For instance, if you live in a tornado-prone area, you likely want to make sure that your family knows to retreat to a safe space in your house in that situation, whether it be a basement, closet, safe room, or storm shelter. Similarly, you should find shelter under stable furniture if you are in an earthquake.

Another interesting facet of this plan to consider is where you’ll meet after the disaster blows over. You should specify a location like a notable park, or a neighbour’s house, so you can regroup post-evacuation.

Lastly, you want to make sure that you have emergency supplies on hand. Particularly if you live in a place where hurricanes come through frequently, make sure you have at least enough water for three days, measured out at one gallon per person per day, non-perishable food for three days, a battery-powered radio, maps of the area, first aid kits, cell phone power banks, and anything else you can think of.

If you have all this in place, you’ll be safe during the disaster, even if it’s a lengthy one, and you’ll be able to reunite with loved ones easily.

Remove Gravel From Your Property

Another more minor consideration meant to protect your property and body during windy and intense conditions is to remove gravel landscaping material. This is important because you want your house siding and windows to be protected from damage or even breakage.

In high-wind situations, gravel will blow around at strong speeds, damaging property, and potentially hurting you. Instead, consider switching out this material with mulch, or shredded tree bark, which has the same aesthetic properties and functionality, but doesn’t carry with it a risk of harm or damage.

Secure and Clear

Building on the last idea, you want to make sure that there aren’t any other dangerous implements flying through the air in the midst of a storm.

In fact, the most common cause of home damage during a storm season is because of flying branches and falling trees. These can require costly repairs because in a storm the limbs will break from the tree, often puncturing windows and hitting your house’s exterior. Heavy rain will also potentially cause shallowly-rooted trees to tilt and crash into your home.

Thus, you want to make sure that tree limbs are trimmed to prevent this sort of damage, and that your trees are properly secured in place.

Another area you want to secure is your fences. Make sure they’re tied down or properly staked so that they don’t get lifted up and thrown against your house, or, more worryingly, against people.

Stay Alert

Many local communities today have an alert system, which will automatically send messages via email or text to your cellular device, thus making it a great use of technology for the social good.

Generally, these systems operate automatically and are capable of sending tons of information, from the safety measures implemented in your jurisdiction to the status of local services and roads, and even tips for how to best prepare for coming storms. Even something as minor as whether trash pickup will run can help a lot.

Signing up is usually as easy as going to your community website, or just following the social media accounts of your town. Some general Twitter accounts for national alerts include @NOAA, @FEMA, and @NWS. They will certainly have up-to-date information about dangerous impending weather.

Protect Your Pipes

Flooding during summer storms can happen, thus causing sewage backups, which is a disgusting occurrence that is as damaging as it is unpleasant to deal with.

To ensure that sewer lines don’t end up overflowing into the standing water in your home, consider installing check valves and backflow valves. These minor investments will stop waste from flowing in the wrong direction. If you have the know-how, you can do it completely by yourself with a quick trip to a home hardware store.

Or, if you’re not comfortable working with tools, you can hire a professional plumber who should be able to install them for around $100 each.

The Final Word

So, there’s a lot to do when it comes to preparing for summer storms. Some things are just practical like securing your belongings and prepping your property for minimum damage, while others like having an emergency plan and getting regular updates are more suited to larger-scale disasters where you may be more worried about your own well-being than your property.

Now that you’ve gone through this entire article, we’re sure you’re very knowledgeable about summer storms and exactly what you need to do to protect your property in case of such occurrences. However, it may be worthwhile to also consider an insurance policy to cover any damages that you aren’t able to predict or prepare for.

If that idea interests you at all, then why not try reaching out to us at W.B. White Insurance? We can provide personal home insurance in Oshawa and can be reached at 1-877-727-0757 or via our web page.