On CNN a Florida government official (didn’t catch who she was – mayor?) said that people are tired of putting up their hurricane shutters, taking them down, putting them up again… She said that people are suffering from ‘hurricane fatigue’.
My friend’s father in Bay St. Louis/Waveland, Mississippi put up steel hurricane shutters. (He was feared dead, but he did in fact survive Katrina.) What are hurricane shutters, exactly? Could those roll-up security grates (which ‘suck up’ to there’s no open space) be used as hurricane shutters so that people wouldn’t have to keep putting them up and taking them down? Can they, or do they, make hurricane shutters that roll up?
I googled rolling hurricane shutters and found websites of some manufacturers. So they do exist. I suspect they are more expensive than the rigid kind that needs to be installed and removed for each storm, which is why they’re not used as much.
The rolling shutters are sort of unsightly when they are not being used. Actually they are sort of unsightly when they are being used but people don’t care so much about that.
The most common ones, outside of nailed up plywood, are corrogated heavy gauge metal that overlaps and fit onto a series of pegs in grooves. I’ll see if I can get a close up picture of those at my parents house since I’m going to be by there today.
When I lived in Germany (Frankfurt-Hanau-Wiesbaden area) years and years ago, most of the houses and apartments had what I imagine were hurricane shutters. Not literally, since hurricanes won’t go there, plus I’ve never seen why they’d be required. Anyway… they were kind of integral to the wall/window, and didn’t in fact look ugly from the outside. They were easy to deploy. I wonder why something like this wouldn’t be standard fare in hurricane-prone areas?
Also, in my area a lot of the older homes (i.e., greater than 30 years old) have “fake” storm shutters aside their window openings. I imagine that at some point “real” storm shutters would have been standard, right? They’re kind of charming on the right house style. Just something else that would be common sense, maybe, in storm-prone areas.
I remember these as well from visiting my dad while he was stationed there in the early 90’s, they were called to my recolection Rolanden, they rolled up into a cavity above the window where the header is probally located. All the house we went in had them, they were great if you wanted to sleep in and not the sun in cause they made the room pitch black. They were controlled by webbed strap that came through the wall and I think would be a pretty good security system to Boot.
I have seen after market installations of these where a large box is hung over the window on the outside that looks unsightly but so do broken windows and water logged furniture.
OK, Hurricane shutters, as used in the actual Hurricane Belt, come in two main formats:
Overlapping sectional metal or composite panels, that you store in the garage and bring out and install into fixed-to-the-wall grooved mounts or bolt-holes, and lock into place. This is the stoutest form of protection, if properly installed it has the effect of being an extra layer of solid wall.
“Acccordion” shutters, again, metal or composite-on-metal-ribs panels that are fan-folded to the side of the windows on tracks in the manner their name suggests, and when deployed are then locked and bolted. At the fold-points, a sturdy metal spar runs the width and sticks deep into the track. These are very popular here in PR, specially with high-rise structures. However, they have the perceived defect of having more moving parts that are articulated, so they are seen potentially vulnerable to "play"themselves loose in the storm if not put up right.
There are also the old-fashioned “Hurricane Windows” which is a variation on the traditional storm shutter, that were used in the old days and, wouldn’t you know, work mighty fine in old-time houses. And the “Miami Windows” which means your window is made of aluminum louvers, not glass.
Roll-up/roll-down shutters are quite more complex to properly design and install than panel or accordion shutters; most homeowners will rather go for something simple, straightforward and well tested. And considering that historically most people only need to put them up once every couple of years, the tendency is to go for the simple panels, which are far the cheapest version.
And plywood really isn’t very good as hurricane shutters. Unless they are extremely well fastened to structural parts of the house, they can become flying death blades.