When a roof opens up during a storm, the first job isn't a permanent fix, it's stopping water from getting to whatever is underneath. Inventory, production equipment, and building contents don't care whether the eventual repair is elegant, they just need water kept off them fast. Our tarp-in response follows that priority first, with permanent repair planning coming after the building is protected.
Most emergency tarp calls in the Evansville area come from one of two sources: wind damage that's torn or lifted a section of membrane during a fast-moving thunderstorm, or hail impact that's punctured a roof badly enough to let water through immediately. Straight-line wind events off the river and the occasional tornado warning that puts Vanderburgh County under a watch both produce the kind of sudden, localized roof damage that can't wait for a scheduled repair slot.
A tree limb coming down on a lower roof section during a storm is another common cause, particularly on buildings near mature tree lines on the edges of the city. Whatever the cause, the response process is the same, get eyes on the damage, get it covered, and keep the building dry until permanent repair can be scheduled.
For manufacturing facilities running shifts, an open roof over active production equipment is an operations emergency first and a maintenance issue second. We prioritize calls where water is actively threatening equipment, controls, or inventory that can't get wet, and we coordinate directly with plant maintenance on which areas of the roof are over the most sensitive equipment so those sections get covered first if the damage spans a wider area.
Warehouse and distribution operations have their own version of this urgency, a breach over racking full of product means every hour of exposure is potential loss. We work fast, but we also work in the sequence that protects the most value first when a single crew has to cover multiple damaged sections. On sites near the riverfront casino and the surrounding retail corridor, a breach over a kitchen, storage room, or gaming floor gets the same urgent treatment, since water damage to finished interior space is expensive to remediate even when the roof repair itself is small.
A tarp that's just weighted down with sandbags or cinder blocks is the kind of temporary fix that fails in the next wind event. We anchor tarps mechanically wherever the substrate allows, because a second emergency call two days later over a tarp that blew loose helps nobody.
Storms don't check a schedule before they roll through the Ohio Valley, and a lot of the worst damage happens overnight or on weekends when a building's own staff isn't on site to catch it early. We take emergency calls outside normal hours specifically because a roof breach that sits unaddressed from Friday night to Monday morning can turn a repairable section into a much bigger interior damage claim.
A tarp buys time, it doesn't replace a real repair. Once the building is protected, we schedule the permanent fix, membrane patch, flashing repair, or in some cases a larger section replacement if the damage was extensive. We keep the tarp photos and damage assessment as part of the record, which is useful both for our own repair planning and for any insurance documentation the building owner needs to file.
We also flag any other wear we notice on the roof while we're up there for the emergency, since a storm severe enough to cause a breach in one spot often stressed the rest of the membrane too, even where it hasn't failed yet. That extra pass costs nothing beyond the time already on site, and it frequently catches a second weak point before it turns into its own emergency call later in the same storm season.
Response time depends on storm activity across the area and how many calls are coming in at once, but active water intrusion over production equipment or inventory gets prioritized immediately.
A properly installed tarp, mechanically anchored rather than just weighted, is built to hold through subsequent weather. We revisit sites after the next rain event to confirm it's still performing.
Yes. Storm damage doesn't wait for business hours, and an unprotected breach left over a weekend can turn into significantly worse interior damage.
We install tarps in a way that avoids additional damage to the surrounding membrane, and we document the emergency work separately from the permanent repair for warranty and insurance purposes.
That depends on the extent of damage and material availability, but we schedule the permanent fix as soon as the tarp has stabilized the situation and the full scope has been assessed.