What a storm does to a South Coast roof
A nor'easter brings hours of steady northeast wind with rain driven sideways, which lifts the first course of shingle at the eave and pushes water up under ridge caps that were not sealed tight. A tropical system brings shorter, harder gusts from the south, which hit slopes facing Mount Hope Bay the hardest of anything in the service area.
Both bring down branches. On the more heavily treed lots out toward Westport and Dartmouth, a limb through the deck is at least as common a storm call as lifted shingle.
The first 48 hours
Active leaks are tarped first, and a tarp only holds if it is battened at the edges and run over the ridge rather than just weighted down with a few bricks. Photos are taken and dated before the tarp goes on, and homeowners get copies the same day for their own records.
Where a tree has come down on the roof, the tree is cleared before anything else and the deck underneath is checked for cracked rafters or a broken ridge board, because that is a framing problem before it is a roofing one.
Reading the damage
Once the weather clears, the whole roof gets inspected, not just the obvious spot. Storm damage often shows up as a shingle that lifted, folded back, and settled down again with a broken mat that will fail within a season even though it looks fine from the ground. Those creased shingles are counted by slope and marked.
The assessment separates true storm damage from ordinary wear, since that line is exactly what an insurance claim turns on. A roof near the end of its service life with a few lifted tabs is a different claim than a ten-year-old roof stripped bare on one slope.
Working alongside an insurance claim
Documentation includes the storm date, damage counts by slope, photos with a reference scale, and a repair scope. The homeowner deals with the carrier directly; the job here is to hand over accurate documentation and be available if an adjuster wants to walk the roof.
Once the deck is dry, permanent repair follows: lifted tabs replaced and hand-sealed, creased slopes stripped and re-shingled, damaged deck swapped out, and flashing renewed wherever a slope was reopened.