"RB" wrote in message
.. .
Went though Ivan and now Dennis without significant house damage.
However,
other hurricanes will most likely be along. And, they seem to like where
I
am on the Gulf Coast.

Got a concern I'd like your opinion on. I believe losing your house roof
during the storm peak would be a major casualty. This possiblity
bothers
me a lot. So, I started trying to think of simple and practical ways to
minimize the likeliehood of this happening. You've got a miserable time
ahead of you if your roof goes. This and a big, heavy tree falling on the
house are the two big structural casualties I see associated with these
hurricanes.

One idea is to throw ropes up and across the roof at several points, and
cinch them down to opposing auger ground anchors like mobile homes use.
These anchors are not too intrusive or obvious, and the ropes can be
stowed
except for use during storm times. Three or four ropes would literally
tie
your roof down, except for where the ropes aren't. However, I think the
roof is interlocked enough the three or four ropes across it might fairly
well hold the whole thing on, if it was attempting to rip off from wind
blast.

The question being: is this approach likely to give your roof the edge in
staying down when it might otherwise blow off? In other words, even
though
the rope approach might be a marginal thing, could it be that the marginal
downward holding force might just be enough to make the difference between
keeping and loosing the roof in some situations?

We know that under certain conditions, the roof can blow off no matter
what
we do. But, I'm just wondering if there's enough of an edge to this idea
to
make it worthwhile doing? Probably $100 for a coil of manila rope and
some
ground anchors would be the project cost.

I guess my concern is that we might get a stronger storm than Ivan was,
and/or a very slow moving one which would have lots of time to
progressively
weaken the roof attachments.


You will have a good opportunity to reinforce the roof next time you reroof.
With the shingles off you can add additional longer nails in the decking and
add some metal straps to anchor the rafters to the side walls (may need to
temporarily remove a srtip of decking to gain access but this can easily be
replaced).

As for the odd tree falling, you can always fell them now when you are in
control or at least trim any large limbs that might overhang your house or
car.