Big Country braces for Friday’s windstorm, here’s what experts say to do

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — It’s a windy day in the Key City, but by Friday, the wind will exceed 50 miles per hour. We’ve seen this before with last week’s dust storm, and some neighborhoods are still recovering.

Neighborhoods like the one on Sylvan Street are still recovering from the last gusty day. William Bunting reported that a large tree in his neighbor’s front yard was uprooted during the storm. Fortunately, it missed both houses as it fell.

“I wanted to make sure that all the limbs that were over the house got taken care of before big winds or an ice storm or something came up and then we’d have some issues,” Bunting said. “They got real lucky. The way it fell between the two houses, one foot or another, either way, it could have taken out the roof.”

The most common damage during the last storm was to roofs, and Matt Smith, owner of Fat Matt Roofing, said his biggest piece of advice for residents is to leave everything to the professionals because things may not seem as bad as they truly are.

“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, there’s a tree on our roof,’ but they don’t see what’s shoved in through the roof, or they may try to get up there and remove it themselves. Well, you have debris all over. You have potentially damaged rafters and decking,” Smith explained.

Smith said the best way to prepare your roof for potential damages is to self-assess your property and, if necessary, call a professional.

“What we recommend is first getting your roof. If you’ve seen stuff flapping, call a roofer. Have us come out and do an inspection on it to see what we can do to prevent that area from blowing off. Because if it’s just flapping right now, it may blow off in this next part,” Smith said.

Meteorologist Pete Beretta advises securing loose items from your yard, such as lawn chairs, doormats and trash cans.

“What people can do is just make sure everything’s battened down. It’s nothing like driving down the street and seeing a bunch of trash cans flying all over the place,” Beretta said, “Not only will we have a red flag warning, but we’re also going to see some extremely bad blowing dust.”