Safety first, and this is not a formality
More people are hurt inspecting storm damage than by the storm. A roof that has just taken sustained wind has loosened decking, hidden soft spots and a wet surface, and the wind is frequently still blowing when people decide to go up and look. Stay off the roof. Stay away from anything resting on the building, and well away from any downed line, which should be treated as live until the utility says otherwise. If part of a ceiling is bulging with held water, keep everyone out from under it — it can release all at once and it is heavier than it looks.
Start inside, not outside
The inside of the building tells you whether water is already getting in, which is the thing that actually matters. Work through the top floor first.
- Ceilings, especially near exterior walls, chimneys and bathrooms
- The tops of walls, where water travelling along framing often emerges
- Around light fittings and ceiling fans — treat any water near these as an electrical hazard
- Window and door heads on the storm-facing elevation
- A damp or musty smell that was not there before
Then the attic, if you can get into it safely
The attic is the most informative place in the building after a storm, because you are looking at the underside of the roof itself rather than at the end of a water trail. Take a torch. Look for daylight showing through anywhere it should not, dark staining on the underside of the sheathing, damp or flattened insulation, rust forming at nail points, and water actually running along a rafter. Staining tells you where water has been getting in; its pattern tells you which way it travelled.
Now walk the outside, on the ground
You can learn a surprising amount without leaving the lawn, and all of it is safe to do.
- Look for shingle pieces, whole shingles and ridge cap in the yard and against fences
- Check the base of downspouts for granule accumulation — a heavy deposit means surface loss
- Look up at the roof edges, eaves, rakes and ridge for anything lifted, rippled or missing
- Check the gutters for displacement, sagging or new blockage
- Look at visible flashing — chimney, wall junctions, vents — for anything out of position
- Look at the siding beneath roof junctions for new staining or water tracks
- Check outbuildings, garages and sheds, which are easy to forget
Photograph everything while it is fresh
Take pictures of anything you find, inside and out, along with wide shots that establish which building and which elevation. Note the date. If you end up making an insurance claim, contemporaneous photographs are the evidence, and they are much more persuasive than a description given weeks later. This is also the moment to keep any written scope from emergency work, because that becomes part of the same record.
What a proper inspection adds
Everything above is genuinely useful and none of it finds broken shingle seals, which are the most common consequential wind damage there is. It also will not tell you whether decking has been fractured under an intact-looking shingle by a limb strike, or whether a flat roof's termination has started to lift. Those require being on the roof. If the storm brought sustained wind, or if anything came down onto the building, that is the point at which a look from the ground stops being enough.
About the contractors who arrive afterwards
After any regional storm there is a predictable wave of door-knocking, some of it entirely legitimate and some of it not. There is no need to decide anything on your doorstep. Ask for findings in writing with photographs, read anything you are asked to sign — particularly documents that assign your insurance benefits to a contractor — and be wary of anyone who tells you what your insurer will pay before an adjuster has seen the roof. Nobody can promise that.
What differs across Atlantic County
The same storm produces different damage in different parts of this county. On the barrier islands and along the marsh edges, expect wind damage: lifted and missing shingles, broken seals, displaced ridge cap and edge metal, and water driven horizontally past laps and flashing. Inland, in the Pinelands municipalities, expect impact: limbs onto roofs, branches dragging across slopes, and debris blocking valleys and gutters. If you are inland and nothing came down, your roof has probably had an easier night than a house on Brigantine.
