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Photos show some houses survived Hurricanes Helene and Milton while their neighbors crumbled. Homeowners can learn from them.

October 11, 20240
Keaton Beach is just a 30-minute drive south from where Hurricane Helene made landfall. Many homes in this area were destroyed.

Google, Airbus/NOAA Remote Sensing Division

Winds upwards of 140 mph pummeled houses, broke windows, and peeled away roofs. The damage is clear in satellite imagery.

“It’s not luck,” Leslie Chapman-Henderson, the president and CEO of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, told Business Insider.
Many houses in Cedar Island were demolished from Hurricane Helene.

Google, Airbus/NOAA Remote Sensing Division

FLASH is a nonprofit that advocates for disaster-resilient homes and publishes a guide to hurricane preparedness.

“I think if you look at a house that survived, nine times out of 10 it’s going to be because the roof is well connected and the garage door stayed in place,” Chapman-Henderson said. “Those are the two biggest clues in a wind event.”

The garage door can make a huge difference.
Debris from damaged houses surround houses still standing after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Horseshoe Beach, Florida.

CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP

That’s why Chapman-Henderson says it’s the most important part of the house to board up ahead of a storm, and the first thing to consider upgrading.

FLASH recommends three different options at different budget points. The cheapest is to grab a drill and board up the garage door with wood 2-by-4s ahead of any incoming storm.

The next option is to spend about $200 to $750 to have a professional install a garage-door storm kit with struts and braces that permanently reinforce the door.

Finally, homeowners can spend a few thousand dollars on a new garage door that’s rated to withstand high winds.

While the garage door may be the largest opening in a house, the windows are the most numerous.
The central home shown here is missing its roof after Hurricane Helene blew it away.

Mandel NGAN / AFP

A strong connection has to be established when the house is constructed, by using hardware like metal straps.

You can’t really tell if your house has that hardware because it’s usually “hidden behind architectural finishes,” O’Reilly said. But, he added, modern homes in places like Florida generally have the proper connections because of building codes.

Houses built before the late 20th century probably don’t have those strong connections and are more liable to lose their roofs during a storm, he said.

According to FLASH, you can reinforce your roof’s connections a bit by going into the attic and applying flooring adhesive where the roof deck meets its supporting rafters or trusses.

Lifting a house up on stilts can protect it from a storm’s waters.
The aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Horseshoe Beach, Florida.

CHANDAN KHANNA/Getty Images

The rising global temperatures caused by humans’ carbon emissions are making hurricanes more ferocious.

That’s partly because tropical cyclones feed off of warm waters. As ocean temperatures rise, hurricanes can more easily whip themselves into a frenzy. More storms are intensifying rapidly, like Hurricane Milton, which means their windspeeds increase drastically over a short time period.

At the same time, rising temperatures in the atmosphere allow the air to hold more moisture. That means hurricanes can dump more rain along their paths.

It’s as good a time as any to strengthen your home.