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> 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.
>
>