Fortify your garage door

Experience has shown in older houses that when garage doors fail in hurricane winds, a lot of additional damage follows. When you are evaluating your house for its vulnerability to hurricanes you need to look at your garage door as one of the first and most important vulnerabilities. Older garage doors and new ones that are not pressure rated are highly susceptible to wind damage, including buckling, twisting off the tracks and failure due to impact from windborne debris. Doors can be pushed in by winds blowing onto the door or pulled out as winds whip around the corner of the house where the door is located.

There are three main ways you can protect your garage door during a hurricane:

• Often, newer garage doors will come with extra bracing and pins that go on the sides. In this situation, make sure to close the door, unplug the garage door opener, and place the safety pins in the side foundation of the home.
• Some garage doors come with poles on inside of garage door which, when placed into the concrete, can lock your garage door in place.
• Another method is to place paneled shutters on outside of garage door. Although effective, this method can be time consuming (many panels have to be put up).

Whichever method you choose, make sure to keep your garage door protected during a hurricane.

Note:  Don't use your car to bolster the door.  Backing your car against the door provides little additional bracing. It may help brace the bottom panel from positive (inward acting) pressure; but, it will do nothing to help with negative (outward acting) pressures. It just puts the car closer to possible debris impact damage.