Storm and wind damage
The valley’s storm damage is mostly wind and what the wind throws, which insurers handle differently from hail.
Storm damage in the Brazos Valley has a different profile from the High Plains. Hail happens and occasionally matters, but the recurring damage here is wind, sustained rather than violent, plus whatever the wind puts through the roof.
What wind does that you cannot see
Asphalt shingles seal to each other with heat: the strip on the underside bonds to the course below and the roof becomes one surface. Wind’s main damage is breaking that seal rather than removing shingles.
An unsealed shingle sits there looking normal. It is no longer part of a bonded system, it flutters, it works its fasteners, and the following storm takes it. This is real damage that is hard to show in a photograph, which is why it is the most argued about category in a wind claim.
The tells are along edges and at rakes, where uplift is highest, and it is worth having looked at after a genuinely windy event even if nothing is on the lawn.
Partial losses
Wind damage tends to be concentrated, often on one or two elevations. Insurers scope what was damaged, which frequently means a partial. That is reasonable in principle and produces two recurring arguments.
The first is matching. If the shingle is discontinued or has weathered so that a new one will visibly differ, whether the insurer owes a full replacement turns on your specific policy language rather than on fairness.
The second is where the repair stops. A slope that was half damaged is not straightforwardly repaired to half a slope, and the negotiation is about how much of a plane has to be redone to make the repair sound.
Neither is a reason to be unpleasant to an adjuster. Both are reasons to be in the conversation rather than downstream of it.
The first week
Photograph before anybody tidies. Wide shots establishing the property, then close shots of every specific thing, and anything that came off the roof photographed where it landed.
Do temporary work to stop further damage, keep the receipts, and do not throw away the damaged material. A tarp is reasonable and expected. A full repair before the loss has been documented is not.
Note the storm date. “Sometime in May” is a materially weaker claim than a date.
Questions people ask
- Nothing blew off but I can see shingles lifted. Is that damage?
It can be. Wind can break the thermal seal between courses without removing anything. The shingle looks present and is no longer bonded, so the next storm takes it. It is legitimate damage and it is also hard to photograph convincingly, which is why it gets argued about.
- Are we far enough inland to ignore hurricanes?
Far enough that direct surge is not the issue, not far enough to ignore the systems. What reaches the Brazos Valley from a Gulf storm is sustained wind over many hours and a great deal of rain, and sustained wind is harder on a roof edge than a short violent gust.
- A tree limb hit the roof. Roof claim or tree claim?
Generally a property claim for the damage the limb caused. Removal of the tree itself is often treated separately and sometimes limited. Photograph everything before anybody moves the limb.