Active hurricane season essentials: Sprit recommendations and hurricane shutters

Since the hurricane season is predicted to be more intense this year, homeowners should make necessary home preparations as the season continues.

Specifically, the National Hurricane Center says 17-25 named storms in the Atlantic this year because of warm weather and La Niña. Beryl became the second named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season when it landed on Carriacou Island in Grenada within the Caribbean Sea on July 1 with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. It was reported that through the National Hurricane Center the storm knocked out electricity and flooded the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, and Tobago streets.

In order to prevent particles from coming in and to avoid pressure from wind, existing Windows can be covered by Hurricane shutters. However, choosing the most appropriate type of hurricane shutters that you should use to protect your home openings could still be a challenge. “The worst protection is no protection at all, and the second worst is the wrong protection,” said the second in charge and executive director of Federal Alliance for Safe Homes in Tallahassee, Florida, Leslie Chapman Henderson.

As observed in the following discussion, hurricane shutters come in different types, permanent and temporary.

Do you require storm shutters?

According to the poll results, during a hurricane, damage to property and lives at risk are threatened by flooding and storm surges. Nonetheless, new data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reveals that home loads increased more than anticipated. The American Society of Civil Engineers claimed that most wind loss models indicate that they have underestimated the forecast losses due to wind. Wind mitigation is underestimated because these models do not consider the property’s neighborhood texture.

Hurricane Shutter Options:

When selecting hurricane shutters for your home, you should consider three factors: the amount of money you are willing to spend, their color and preference, and whether the hair color will be permanent. Aluminum hurricane shutters generally are less of an eyesore for most of the year when compared with steel security shutters.
Some permanent shutters are more eye-appealing than others, and many cheaper permanent solutions are less attractive.

Hurricane Fabric

Hurricane fabric is an innovation protected by a patent, and it entails using nylon fabric with extra strength and a covering of UV-protected resin. They are portable because of their lightweight, and they are also very easy to erect and pack.
Each type of fabric must be cut to cover all the windows, and a couple of inches must be added to fit the brackets to the wall. The brackets are installed on the walls of your home, and throughout a hurricane, a fabric is supplied to the brackets to enclose these voids. The product is fairly resistant and only takes a little storage; hence, it is suitable for many homeowners.

Colonial Shutters

Colonial shutters are easily one of the best-looking permanent hurricane shutters you can install. Indeed, they are useful, and as Madonia pointed out, “they are also capable of enhancing the home’s appearance.” Many older structures already have fixed colonial-styled shutters that cannot shield openings from hurricanes.

Bahama shutters

For instance, Bahama shutters have been conventional in the Caribbean Islands for centuries because they are exceptionally efficient in shielding a building against storms. The metal shutters are fixed to a window so that a louver system is operated on the window. “It moves at the top of your window at precisely the forty-five percent fixed position,” says Madonia, to effectively restrict your vision and offer privacy. A telescopic arm helps you open and close the shutters, protecting your windows.