Emergency Roof Tarp: What to Do After a Storm Hits Your Home Target

The first hour after a storm tears through Austin can determine whether you’re dealing with a roof repair — or a full interior gut job. Water doesn’t wait. Once a shingle blows off or a branch punches through a soffit, it’s a race between you and whatever moisture is coming next. This five-step guide walks you through exactly what to do from the moment the weather clears until a professional crew has your roof properly protected.

Step 1 — Make Sure It’s Safe

Before you do anything else, survey the scene from the ground. Central Texas storms can leave behind downed power lines, uprooted trees, and structural damage that isn’t visible from a sidewalk glance.

Walk the perimeter of your home and look for:

• Power lines on or near the roof — do not approach. Call Austin Energy (512-494-9400) immediately.
• Sagging rooflines or gutters pulling away from the fascia, which can signal structural compromise.
• Tree limbs that may be partially loaded and could shift if disturbed.

Do not climb onto your roof. Even in dry conditions, residential roofing is sloped, slick, and structurally unpredictable after impact. After a storm, surface debris, wet shingles, and hidden soft spots make it genuinely dangerous. This step belongs to trained crews with fall-arrest systems — not homeowners with extension ladders.

Step 2 — Document the Damage

Insurance adjusters work from evidence. The more thorough your documentation before anything is moved, covered, or repaired, the stronger your claim will be.

From the ground and through windows, capture:

• Wide shots of the entire roofline showing context and scale
• Close-ups of any visible missing shingles, punctures, or displaced flashing
• Interior ceiling staining, bubbling paint, or visible water intrusion points
• Date and time stamps — most smartphone cameras embed these automatically

If it’s safe to enter the attic with a flashlight, photograph any daylight showing through the decking and any moisture on insulation or rafters. Back everything up to cloud storage before the adjuster visit.

Documentation is time-sensitive. Hail bruising on shingles can be visually ambiguous within days as granule loss progresses. Photograph now, sort later.

Step 3 — Stop Further Water Intrusion Indoors

While you wait for professional help, your job is damage containment — not repair.

Inside the home:

• Move furniture, electronics, and rugs out from under any wet ceiling areas.
• Place buckets or plastic storage bins under active drips.
• Lay down plastic sheeting or old tarps on hardwood and laminate floors — standing water warps these materials fast.
• If a ceiling is actively bulging with trapped water, carefully puncture the lowest point with a screwdriver to let it drain in a controlled stream rather than a sudden collapse. Do this into a bucket, not onto flooring.

What you should not do indoors: run fans or dehumidifiers into saturated wall cavities or insulation until the source is sealed. Circulating air through wet building materials accelerates mold growth rather than preventing it.

Step 4 — Call a Professional Tarping Service

This is where most homeowners make an expensive mistake.

DIY tarps fail. Not sometimes — routinely. The reason isn’t the tarp itself; it’s the anchoring. A tarp that isn’t properly weighted, wrapped around the ridge, and secured with battens or strapping acts like a sail in the next weather event. Wind gets underneath, lifts the tarp, and tears off additional shingles in the process. What started as a two-square repair becomes a full-slope replacement.

A professional emergency tarping crew does several things differently:

• Proper sizing — the tarp runs from the ridge down past the eave with enough overhang to shed water clear of the fascia.
• Mechanical fastening — battens and strapping are fixed through the tarp into the decking at specified intervals, not just weighted at the corners with sandbags.
• Ridge wrapping — water travels to the highest exposed point first. Without ridge coverage, a tarp is not waterproof — it’s a funnel.
• Documentation — a professional crew provides a written scope of work and photos of the installation, both of which you’ll need for your insurance claim.

Comanche Roofing provides 24/7 emergency roof tarping across Austin and the surrounding area. Our crews are dispatched with proper materials and work within insurance documentation standards. If your roof has taken storm damage, call us before water does more damage than the storm did.

Step 5 — Schedule Your Insurance Adjuster Visit

Once the roof is tarped and documented, contact your homeowner’s insurance carrier to open a claim. Most carriers require notice within a reasonable time after the storm event — don’t let this sit.

Have the following ready before the adjuster arrives:

Photos and video — everything you captured in Step 2, organized chronologically. Separate pre-tarp damage documentation from post-tarp photos clearly.

The tarping invoice — a line-itemized invoice from the tarping contractor, including materials and labor. Insurance carriers expect emergency tarping costs as a separate line item and typically cover them as part of the claim.

A written damage summary — a one-page list of every damaged area you identified, room by room, with timestamps. It doesn’t need to be formal. What it needs to be is complete. Adjusters work quickly; a written summary keeps them from missing areas.

Your policy number and deductible — know your deductible before the adjuster arrives so you can evaluate repair vs. replacement thresholds accurately.

One important note: the adjuster works for the insurance company, not for you. Their scope is their starting estimate, not the final word. If the written estimate doesn’t cover the documented damage, you have the right to request a re-inspection or involve a public adjuster.

Comanche Roofing — Austin and San Antonio’s 24/7 Emergency Tarping Crew

Storm damage doesn’t follow business hours, and neither do we. Comanche Roofing responds to emergency tarping calls across Austin, Wells Branch, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, and surrounding communities — day or night.

Call us now: (512) 796-9175 or at (210) 201-2431

Our crew will assess the damage, install a properly secured emergency tarp, provide full photo documentation for your insurance claim, and schedule your permanent repair inspection — all in one visit.

→ Learn more about our Emergency Roof Tarping service