Storm damage roof repair in Leesburg, FL

Three named storms define the recent history. Hurricane Irma (September 10-11, 2017) produced a 69 mph peak gust at Leesburg International Airport with sustained winds of 42 knots, 8.18 inches of rain at the airport and 10.13 inches at a gauge 2.7 miles northwest of it. An EF-1 tornado touched down in Umatilla and tens of thousands of Lake County homes lost power. Hurricane Ian (September 28-29, 2022) was milder here, with a 56 mph gust at the airport, but it arrived on roofs that were five years older than they had been for Irma.

Hurricane Milton (October 9-10, 2024) was the heavier blow. The National Hurricane Center lists a 72-knot gust, roughly 83 mph, at the airport with sustained winds of 43 knots and 8.89 inches of rain at Leesburg. The National Weather Service in Melbourne recorded Lake County gusts of 55-75 mph, six to eleven inches of rain, 285 structures affected (216 minor, 66 major, 7 destroyed) and about $13.6 million in losses, with no confirmed tornado in the county. On October 10, 108,268 of the county's 201,960 electric customers were without power, including 18,972 Leesburg Electric customers.

Go back further and the 2004 season tells a quieter story for Leesburg than for the coast: Frances peaked at 31 mph sustained in Leesburg (though Lake County damage topped $6 million), Jeanne reached 37 mph and Charley barely registered in the county. The lesson for a homeowner is that a Leesburg roof is tested less by catastrophic landfall than by repeated 50-80 mph events spread over its life, each one loosening a few more fasteners and sealant strips. Read our fuller Leesburg storm damage guide on the main site for the season-by-season checklist.

The table below is built only from National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center and NOAA Storm Events records for Leesburg and the towns around it. Fifty knots is about 58 mph, the threshold the Weather Service uses for severe wind.

Two patterns stand out. Most of the damage comes from thunderstorm wind in April through June, not from hurricanes, and the roofs that fail are the ones whose sealant strips had already let go in the heat. Our free roof inspection looks for exactly that weakness before the next cell arrives.

Asphalt shingles

Wind does not usually rip a shingle off in one motion. It lifts the tab, breaks the adhesive seal underneath, and lets the shingle flap until the mat creases just above the nail line. A creased shingle lies flat again when the wind stops, which is why so much storm damage is invisible from the driveway. The next rain drives under the lifted tab, and the leak shows up weeks later as a ceiling stain. Hail bruises the mat and knocks granules loose in a circular pattern; Lake County logged 103 hail reports between 1950 and 2020, peaking in May.

Metal roofs

Standing seam panels handle wind well, but exposed-fastener panels on older homes and manufactured homes depend on hundreds of screws with rubber washers. Heat ages the washers, wind works the panels, and the screw holes elongate. After a storm we look for backed-out screws, panels that have walked, and seams that opened at the eave. Hail dents are mostly cosmetic on steel but can crack the paint film and start rust. More on panel types is on our metal roofing page.

Soffit, fascia and gutters

Soffit is the first thing to go in a gust because wind pressurizes the attic through the vents and pushes the panels out from behind. Once soffit is gone, wind-driven rain has a clear path to the ceiling. Fascia boards peel when gutters full of oak leaves act as a sail. We replace soffit and fascia as part of a storm repair, not as an afterthought.

Lightning

Florida leads the country in lightning density and the season runs late May through September. A strike rarely sets a roof on fire, but it can blow a hole through decking, shatter a vent, and scorch shingles in a star pattern around a chimney or antenna mast. Those holes need to be found and sealed quickly in a climate that averages 43.78 inches of rain a year, with June the wettest month at nearly seven inches.

When a roof is open, the priority is stopping water, not writing paperwork. Our emergency response works in this order:

1. Safety check. We will not put a crew on a roof in lightning or sustained high wind. If it is unsafe to work, we tarp or dry in from the safest position possible and come back for the permanent repair as soon as conditions allow. That is the same promise written into our Leak-Free Promise.
2. Tarp or peel-and-stick dry-in. For a small opening we install self-adhering underlayment directly over the damaged area, which sheds water better than a loose tarp and does not flap. For a large opening we lay a reinforced tarp, fastened with battens into the rafters, never with nails through the field of the tarp.
3. Interior protection. We help you move what we can away from active drips, pierce a sagging ceiling bubble so it drains into a bucket instead of collapsing, and photograph the interior before anything is cleaned up.
4. Written scope within days. Once the roof is dry we come back in daylight, open the attic, and write a repair scope you can read and compare.

A temporary dry-in is exactly that. In Leesburg's heat a tarp degrades in weeks, so we schedule the permanent roof repair while the tarp is still sound. If you have an active drip right now and the storm has passed, the roof leak repair page explains what to do inside the house tonight.

Good records protect you whether or not you ever involve your insurer. They also protect you from the out-of-town crews that follow every hurricane up US 27. Do these things first, and please do not climb on the roof.

• Photograph from the ground, all four sides. Stand back far enough to see the whole slope, then zoom in on anything that looks lifted, missing or bent. Your phone stamps the date and time on every picture.
• Photograph the yard. Shingle tabs, ridge cap pieces, soffit panels and gutter sections on the lawn tell us which slope let go and in which direction the wind came.
• Photograph inside. Every ceiling stain, wet insulation you can see from the attic hatch, water on window sills and swollen door casings. Measure the stain with a tape in the frame.
• Write down the storm. The date, the time it hit, and any wind or hail you observed. We will match it against the official airport reading.
• Keep receipts. Tarps, buckets, a hotel night if the house was unlivable. Keep the receipts in one envelope.
• Do not sign anything at the door. Especially an assignment of benefits or a contract with a blank price. A legitimate contractor will leave a written scope and come back.

When we arrive we add roof-level photos, chalk-marked damage, measurements and a sketch of each slope. Everything goes into a written report you own, whether you hire us or not. The main site has a longer guide to documenting storm damage.

Most storm damage in Leesburg is repairable, and we say so when it is. A dozen creased shingles, a torn pipe boot, a blown-out soffit run or a section of lifted edge metal is a one-day repair carrying our 2-year workmanship warranty. Where the decision gets harder is the roof that lost a large piece of one slope.

Florida's existing-building code sets a threshold. If more than 25 percent of a roof section is repaired or replaced within a twelve-month period, the whole section must be brought up to current code, which in practice means replacement, unless the roof was built or replaced to the 2007 Florida Building Code or later, in force since March 1, 2009 (F.S. 553.844(5), as amended in 2022). For a Royal Highlands home roofed in 2003 or a Scottish Highlands home still on its 1990 shingles, that line matters. For a Legacy of Leesburg home re-roofed in 2019, it does not.

So our storm scope always answers three questions in writing: what percentage of each slope is damaged, when the roof was last permitted, and whether the remaining shingles still have sealed tabs and granules worth saving. If the honest answer is replacement, we explain it on the roof replacement page's terms: a permitted tear-off, secondary water barrier, re-nailed decking where the county requires it, and a 10-year workmanship warranty. Financing is available on every estimate; see financing.

Whether to file a claim is your decision, and the outcome is your carrier's decision. Pro Specialty Services is a roofing contractor, not a public adjuster. We do not interpret your policy, negotiate your claim or promise what it will pay. Here is the part we do well:

• Inspect and photograph every slope, penetration and interior stain, with dates and measurements.
• Write a scope in plain language and standard roofing units so an adjuster, a second contractor or your own eyes can check it line by line.
• Meet the adjuster on the roof at your request, point out what we found, and note in writing anything the first inspection missed.
• Do the approved work to code, pull the permit, pass the final inspection, and warranty the workmanship for 2 years on insurance-funded projects.

Here is what we will never do, because Florida law forbids it and because it is wrong: we do not offer a gift, a cash payment, a coupon or anything else of value for letting us inspect your roof or for filing a claim; we do not pay or absorb any part of what your policy says you owe; we do not file claims on your behalf or accept an assignment of your benefits; and we do not tell you a roof is a total loss when it is a repair.

One more right worth knowing: if you sign a roof repair or replacement contract within 180 days of a state of emergency declaration covering Leesburg, Florida law lets you cancel it within 10 days of signing or before the official start date, whichever comes first (F.S. 489.147(6)). We put that in writing on every contract signed in a declared emergency. The main site has a straightforward article on how a Florida roof insurance claim works.

Because this page discusses insurance claims for roof damage, Florida law requires us to tell you the following:

The consumer is responsible for payment of any insurance deductible.

It is insurance fraud punishable as a felony of the third degree for a contractor to knowingly or willfully, and with intent to injure, defraud, or deceive, pay, waive, or rebate all or part of an insurance deductible applicable to payment to the contractor for repairs to a property covered by a property insurance policy.

It is insurance fraud punishable as a felony of the third degree to intentionally file an insurance claim containing any false, incomplete, or misleading information.

A storm repair that replaces decking, re-roofs a slope or exceeds the repair threshold needs a permit under F.S. 553.79, and Leesburg addresses go to one of two offices depending on where the property line sits. Inside city limits, which covers most of 34748, the permit comes from the City of Leesburg Building Division, 501 W Meadow St, (352) 728-9700, through the city's online portal. Unincorporated addresses, which means most of 34788, Haines Creek and the US 27 South 55-plus corridor outside city limits, go to the Lake County Office of Building Services, 315 W Main St in Tavares, (352) 343-9653, where residential re-roofs are issued online.

We pull the right one, file the Notice of Commencement when the job exceeds $5,000, take the progress photos the county checklist requires, and schedule the final inspection. A small sealed repair of a few shingles or a pipe boot does not usually trigger a permit; a tarp never does. If you are not sure which office your street falls under, our service area page walks through the neighborhoods, and we can tell you from the address when you call.

Emergency tarping happens before any of that paperwork and is not delayed by it. Permits also protect you at resale: an unpermitted re-roof after Milton is a problem a buyer's inspector will find.

Who you are hiring

We are a Lake County company at 3105 Kurt St in Eustis, owned by Caleb Hutchinson and licensed by the state as a certified roofing contractor (CCC1335465 and CCC1332012), certified general contractor (CGC1538852) and certified residential contractor (CRC1332909). Those four numbers can be checked on the state's license lookup; they are the difference between a company that will still be here for your warranty call in 2029 and a truck that followed the storm into town.

We give written scopes, not verbal numbers. The price on the contract is the price you pay; the only common change order is rotten decking at the per-sheet price written in the contract, and we photograph every sheet we replace. If our repair ever leaks, we are on site within 48 hours to fix it at no cost. Free estimates are scheduled within 48 hours, and in a declared storm event, active leaks go to the front of the line.

Not every storm call ends in a repair. Sometimes the honest answer is that your roof is fine, or that the damage is cosmetic and worth leaving alone. You will get that answer too. Read what customers across Lake County have said on our reviews page, learn more about Pro Specialty Services, or book a free storm inspection now.