5 Hurricane Preparedness Tips

We all know that here in Hawaii severe weather can hit at anytime, but taking this time to prepare yourself and your household will help prevent you from being a victim to a natural disaster. 

It's important to take the risks of heavy rains, high winds, flash floods or any other type of severe weather event seriously. Being unprepared for what Mother Nature can bring, can expose you to major damages to your home, and your financial well-being. 

Hurricane season starts June 1st, and lasts through November 30th with August and September being the most active months historically.

With hurricane season fast approaching for Hawaii, the team here at Kapili want you to be prepared. 

We've put together a few tips below, to help you prepare! 

Keep Your Gutters Clean

Make sure your gutters are clean and clear of debris. This will reduce the chance of your gutters over flowing. The weight of water and debris may cause your gutters to detach and tear away from your roof.  

Gutters are meant to redirect the flow off water from the edge of your roof, to a more appropriate location. When your gutters are not properly working, this can accelerate damages to other areas of your home. 

Have Your Roof Inspected By A Roofing Professional

Your roof is one of the first things you think about when it comes to natural disasters, especially heavy rains. Most home owners don't think to call a roofing contractor until it's too late. When disaster strikes, many roofing contractors are stretched thin and are trying to help as many people as they can. 

Getting in touch with a roofer after a severe weather event, may be challenging. It is better to be proactive, and have your roof inspected ahead of time... so that a roofing professional is familiar with the situation and has the details of your home documented. 

Making sure that your home can withstand severe weather is important, a poorly constructed roof or expired roofing material can expose your home and its contents to major water damages.... which has can come with big remediation costs, and disrupt your day to day life.

Secure Objects That Can Become Loose Or Become Projectiles

During past storms, our team has seen many different types of wind damages.

Improperly secured solar panels, patio extensions and awnings, hanging tree branches, among a host of other things are all examples of items that can cause damages to your home, your neighbors and most importantly others. 

Making sure that you reduce the risk of your items or environment from becoming a threat during high winds is an important step to fortifying your household during a severe weather event. 

Loose items around your home can easily be flying projectiles due to high winds.

At the very least, we recommend that you move any ground level items to a place where it can be secured and blocked from the wind. These items include: 

• Patio Furniture
• Hanging or Potted Plants
• Yard Tools
• Trash Bins
• Any other items at ground level that could get picked up by heavy winds.

Store Important Documents In Waterproof Containers

When water enters your home, either by leaking roof or by flooding, it's important that you have important documents or records protected. 

A few years ago, we responded to flooding in the Aina Haina area. When high winds blow off roofs, we often respond to these incidents on behalf of local insurance companies.

All too often, we see homeowners in a very distressed situation... and a long road ahead of them in getting their home back in order. 

Having the most important items stowed away where they are protected from any water intrusion will help save you some of the headache should something bad happen to your home. 

Here is a short list of items that you should consider protecting: 

• Insurance policies - Also check with your insurance agent that you have adequate coverage! 
• Checkbooks / Cash
• Birth Certificates & Social Security Cards
• Medical and Financial Records
• Any other sentimental or fragile item, such as family photos or memorabilia

There are other ways you can store important documents, like cloud storage or cold digital storage, but make sure that you use a secure method if storing these sort of documents digitally!

Take Photos Of Your Home

Should your home experience loss during a severe weather event... its very likely that many other homeowners have experienced the same. 

This can cause major congestion with insurance companies, as they work around the clock to help all of their insured clients. Having your policies, and photos documenting the original condition of your home will help your insurance adjuster confirm more clearly what type of losses you've experienced. 

This can help speed up the insurance process.

Your photos should include you roof, sidings, and windows, along with the interior condition of your home and ceiling. The more detail, the better. 

During our home inspections, we document and share all of our inspections photos with you that you can access online. If there is ever an instance where you need these photos pulled up, they are time stamped and available at anytime.

As a locally owned and operated business here in the community, we all want to help keep each other safe in the event that disaster strikes.

We are here for any emergency response, such as emergency temp covers and have years of experience responding to local weather events. In the event that you need our services, do not hesitate to contact us!

We have also provided a Hurricane Preparedness Checklist below here!

Click here to download the checklist to have it handy where ever you need it!

Hurricane Preparedness Checklist