Alabama gets the full menu: spring squall lines with straight-line winds and hail, tornado outbreaks, and tropical systems from June through November that can push wind and rain well inland from the Gulf. The check below works for all of them. It takes about thirty minutes, needs a phone, a flashlight and ideally a pair of binoculars, and it never puts you on a ladder.
The walk-around, in order
1. Check for hazards first
Look for downed or sagging power lines, gas smell, trees leaning on the house, and standing water near outlets before you walk the property.
If a line is down, stay well away and call Alabama Power or your local utility; assume every wire is live. If you smell gas, leave and call the gas company from outside. A tree on the roof can shift as it dries or as wind picks up, so keep people out of the rooms beneath it until it is removed.
2. Walk the roofline from the ground
Circle the house with binoculars or a phone zoom and look for missing shingles, lifted tabs, exposed underlayment, and bent flashing or vents.
- Missing shingles or exposed felt: the most urgent item, because underlayment alone will not keep rain out for long.
- Lifted or creased tabs: wind can break the seal strip without tearing the shingle off. Look for a straight crease line across the tab.
- Ridge and hip caps: the most exposed shingles on the roof and often the first to go.
- Flashing, vents and pipe boots: bent metal or a torn rubber boot around a plumbing vent is a common leak point after wind.
- Debris lines: a branch that hit the roof can crack the deck under intact-looking shingles. Note where it landed.
3. Check gutters, soft metals and the ground
Look for dented gutters and downspouts, dings on AC fins and metal vents, and shingle granules collecting at downspout outlets.
Soft metals are the best hail witness on a property. Fresh round dents on gutters, downspouts, mailbox, AC condenser fins or metal roof vents, on the side the storm came from, tell an adjuster hail of that size hit the house. A pile of shingle granules at a downspout outlet that was not there before is another sign. Photograph a dent with a coin or tape measure beside it.
4. Check siding, soffit, fascia, windows and doors
Look for cracked or missing siding, torn soffit panels, loose fascia, broken glass, and torn screens.
Vinyl siding cracks and pops loose in wind; fiber-cement chips at corners; wood siding splits. Torn soffit panels are more serious than they look because they let wind-driven rain and animals into the attic. Check window frames for cracked glazing and doors for frames knocked out of square. Fences and decks count too, and they are usually listed separately on a policy.
5. Check the attic and ceilings
With a flashlight, look for daylight through the roof deck, wet insulation or decking, and fresh stains on ceilings and the tops of walls.
Go up only if the attic has a safe floor or walkable joists. Daylight through the decking, wet insulation, or dark wet spots on the underside of the roof mean water is getting in now. Inside the house, fresh stains show first on ceilings near exterior walls and around light fixtures and vents. Mark the edge of a stain with pencil and the date; if it grows, the leak is active.
6. Photograph everything and protect the opening
Photograph every elevation and every sign you found, then cover openings with a tarp or board so water damage does not grow.
Take wide shots of each side of the house first, then close-ups. Video narrated as you walk is useful too. Save a screenshot of the weather alert or radar for your address and date. Then stop the water: a properly fastened tarp over a damaged area, plywood over a broken window, a bucket and towels inside. Keep receipts. Your policy generally expects reasonable steps to prevent further damage, so do not wait for the adjuster to cover an opening.
What not to do in the first 48 hours
- Do not throw out damaged materials before they are photographed and, ideally, seen by your adjuster.
- Do not start permanent repairs before the adjuster inspection; temporary protection is fine and expected.
- Do not sign a contract at the door, and never sign one that assigns your insurance benefits.
- Do not run electrical equipment in rooms with standing water or wet ceilings.
- Do not use a pressure washer to clean debris off a damaged roof; it strips granules and forces water under shingles.
When to call a professional
Call someone when water is coming in, when a tree or large limb is on the structure, when you see sagging in a ceiling or roofline, or when the damage is beyond what a tarp can cover. A sagging, water-filled ceiling can come down without warning. Keep people out of the room and, if it is safe, puncture a small hole at the lowest point with a bucket under it to drain it in a controlled way.
If you are filing a claim, read our page on how storm damage insurance repairs work. The short version: you own the claim, and a good contractor supplies photos and a written scope and works with your adjuster, without handling the claim or touching your deductible.
For small roof repairs, the roofing bundle calculator turns a damaged area into a shingle count so you can sanity-check a material line on an estimate.