After the wind dies down, check for immediate hazards, photograph everything before you touch it, and put a tarp or board over any breach in the roof or exterior walls before the next rain arrives. Only after that should you call your insurance carrier and start collecting repair estimates.
It's tempting to jump straight to "who can fix this," but the order matters. Florida insurance policies generally require the homeowner to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage, and an adjuster is going to want to see what the house looked like before anyone started patching or replacing anything. Skip a step and you can end up with a smaller claim, a permit headache, or both.
Start with people, not property. If you smell gas, see a downed power line, or notice standing water anywhere near an outlet or panel, stay clear and call the utility before you do anything else. Once the house itself is safe to approach, walk the exterior — roof, soffits, siding, windows, gutters — and take wide shots and close-ups from the ground. Do this before you cover, remove, or discard anything. Insurers lean on photo documentation, and "I already threw it out" is not a position you want to be in when a claim is being reviewed.
Next comes mitigation, which is a real legal term in your policy, not just a suggestion. A tarp over an exposed roof deck, plywood over a broken window, sandbags against a doorway that's taking on water — these are the kinds of temporary measures insurers expect and will usually reimburse. Keep the receipts. What you shouldn't do is start full repairs before your carrier has had a chance to inspect, unless the damage is actively making the house unlivable.
Call your insurance company as soon as you reasonably can, even if you think the damage is minor. Storms that hit Hillsborough County tend to produce a wave of claims all at once, and the sooner you're in the queue, the sooner an adjuster gets to your address. While you wait, get a written inspection and estimate from a licensed local contractor — not a verbal walk-around, an actual document with a Florida license number on it. That estimate becomes useful leverage if your adjuster's number comes back lower than what repairs actually cost.
Generic storm advice skips the parts that actually change the outcome here, and in Hillsborough County those parts are wind zone, flood zone, salt exposure, and which government office issues your permit.
Most of Hillsborough County falls under a 150 mph ultimate design wind speed in the Florida Building Code, but properties close to Tampa Bay — think Bayshore Boulevard, Hyde Park, and other South Tampa areas that front or sit near the water — can fall inside the Wind-Borne Debris Region. If your home is in that zone, code requires impact-rated windows and doors, or shutters, when you replace them; you can't install standard glass and call it done. Carrollwood, Brandon, and Riverview sit further inland and are typically outside that debris-region line, though the base wind-speed requirements still apply everywhere in the county.
Flood zone is a separate issue from wind, and it matters just as much after a storm. FEMA flood maps put a meaningful share of South Tampa and Hyde Park in AE zones because of storm-surge exposure off Tampa Bay and Hillsborough Bay, and parts of Seminole Heights sit close to the Hillsborough River with its own flood risk. Riverview and portions of Brandon have flood-prone stretches near the Alafia River and local creek systems. Carrollwood is generally better positioned but not immune to street and yard flooding in a heavy rain event. If your home takes on water and it's in a flood zone, that's a conversation with a separate flood policy, not your standard homeowners coverage — a lot of people learn this the hard way after the fact.
Salt air is the quiet one. Homes within a few miles of Tampa Bay — much of South Tampa, Hyde Park, and the Davis Islands area — see faster corrosion on fasteners, gutter systems, AC condensers, and any exposed metal on the roof or siding. Storm damage in these neighborhoods often reveals corrosion that was already underway before the wind hit, which is worth knowing before you assume a repair is purely storm-related for claim purposes.
Permitting is where a lot of people get tripped up. South Tampa, Hyde Park, and Seminole Heights fall inside Tampa city limits, so roofing, siding, and window permits go through the City of Tampa's Construction Services Center. Carrollwood, Brandon, and Riverview are unincorporated Hillsborough County, so those same permits go through Hillsborough County Development Services instead. They're different offices with different queues, and after a widespread storm both can back up. A contractor who normally pulls city permits may be slower or less familiar with the county process, and vice versa — worth asking about directly.
Once the immediate safety and documentation steps are done, here's the practical sequence:
Alpine Exteriors handles storm-damage inspections and repair estimates across South Tampa, Hyde Park, Seminole Heights, Carrollwood, Brandon, and Riverview, and part of that work is telling homeowners plainly when a repair is enough and when a full section needs replacing — not just quoting the bigger job. If you're not sure whether your roof or siding damage rises to the level of a claim, a second set of eyes before you call your adjuster is rarely a bad idea.
In most cases, yes. Roofing, siding, and window work typically requires a permit whether you're inside Tampa city limits or in unincorporated Hillsborough County — the difference is which office issues it. A contractor working without pulling a permit isn't doing you a favor; it can complicate insurance claims and resale down the line.
Florida law sets outer limits on filing windows, but they've changed in recent years, and the exact number can depend on your specific policy and whether the event was officially declared. Don't rely on a general rule of thumb — call your carrier or agent and ask for your policy's specific deadline in writing, and do it early rather than assuming you have plenty of time.
Be cautious. Legitimate local contractors do sometimes canvass storm-hit neighborhoods, but so do out-of-state crews who leave once the job goes sideways. Check the license, ask for a local address and references, and get everything in writing before you agree to anything — the same standard you'd apply to a contractor you found any other way.
Insurance doesn't require it directly, but the Florida Building Code might, depending on whether your home falls inside the Wind-Borne Debris Region — which includes parts of South Tampa near the water. Even where it's not required, impact-rated glass can affect your wind mitigation credit and premium, so it's worth asking a contractor to check your zone before you buy standard replacement windows.
If a recent storm left you with roof, siding, or window damage anywhere from South Tampa to Brandon or Riverview, Alpine Exteriors can walk the property, document what's actually damaged, and give you a straight answer on repair versus replacement before you're locked into a claim or a contract. There's no guarantee on how an insurance claim will settle — that's between you and your carrier — but you can at least go into it with an honest, written assessment in hand.