What to Do After a Morecambe Bay Storm Damages Your Roof

Morecambe Bay storm events are not like ordinary heavy rain. The fetch across the Irish Sea gives Atlantic low-pressure systems the space to build significant wave height and wind speed before they reach the Lancashire coast. When they hit — typically between November and March — they arrive with very little warning and can cause roof damage across the Lancaster and Morecambe area in a matter of hours.

If you're reading this after a storm and you can see or suspect damage, here is what to do — in order.

Step 1: Do Not Go on the Roof

It sounds obvious, but every year people injure themselves attempting to check or temporarily repair their own roofs after storm damage. Wet tiles are extremely slippery. Post-storm structural damage may not be visible from the outside, and a tile or section that looks sound from a distance may not bear weight. If the damage is visible from inside the loft or from ground level, you have enough information to make the call. Leave the roof itself to someone with the right access equipment.

Step 2: Check the Loft Space

Storms reaching the exposed Morecambe Bay coast regularly bring gusts above 60mph, sufficient to lift inadequately fixed ridge tiles and slates.

Source: Met Office named storm wind data

Put a torch into the loft space and check for daylight coming through at the ridge or around any penetrations. Check the insulation for wet patches, and look at the rafters for active water tracks. This takes five minutes and tells you whether the roof envelope has been breached and where the priority area is. Take photographs — you'll need them for any insurance claim.

Step 3: Protect What's Below

If water is coming in, contain it. Buckets in the loft, towels and absorbent material at ceiling level, and furniture moved away from drip zones. If water is coming through a light fitting or an electrical socket anywhere in the property, switch off the relevant circuit at the consumer unit and leave it off until the entry point is made watertight. Don't assume the water will stop when the rain does — if the covering has been compromised, water trapped in insulation and roofing layers will continue to drip for hours or days.

Step 4: Call a Roofer for Emergency Make-Safe

An emergency make-safe is not a permanent repair. It is a temporary intervention to stop water entering the property until conditions allow full repairs to be carried out safely. For Lancaster and Morecambe properties this typically involves:

• Securing or removing displaced tiles to prevent further wind movement
• Applying heavy-duty temporary membrane over exposed areas
• Boarding over structural damage where tile or timber has been breached
• Securing loose chimney sections or dislodged ridge tiles that pose a safety risk

Call 0152 474 5928 for 24/7 emergency cover across Lancaster, Morecambe and the surrounding area. We aim to be on site within 2 hours of your call.

Step 5: Document Everything

Before any repair work begins, photograph the damage from every accessible angle — ground level, loft space, and any interior damage below the affected area. Note the date and time. If your insurer sends a loss adjuster, this documentation is your evidence of what the storm caused versus any pre-existing conditions the adjuster might try to cite.

What Bay Storm Damage Typically Looks Like

From 20 years of post-storm call-outs across the Lancaster and Morecambe area, the most common damage patterns are:

Displaced ridge tiles: The most frequent call. Ridge tiles that were already loosely bedded are the first to go. One displaced tile exposes the sarking felt below directly to wind-driven rain.

Slipped Welsh slate on Victorian properties: Slates already affected by nail fatigue are the most vulnerable. A storm that would do nothing to a sound roof can clear a section of nail-sick slate in minutes.

Chimney damage: Exposed chimney stacks — particularly the Victorian sandstone stacks of Bowerham, Bulk and the Morecambe seafront terraces — suffer pot displacement and occasionally partial stack collapse in severe Bay events. Any chimney damage should be treated as a safety priority.

Flat roof membrane lifting: Flat roofs on extensions and garages where the membrane edge has not been properly secured are vulnerable to wind uplift. The Bay's south-westerly gusts catch the edge of membrane and roll it back, exposing the deck below.

After the Emergency: Planning the Permanent Repair

Once the emergency make-safe has been completed and the immediate crisis is resolved, the conversation shifts to permanent repair. The written assessment we provide after every emergency call-out gives you the information you need to make this decision: what was damaged, what is the minimum repair required to restore the roof to weather-tight condition, and whether any related issues were observed that should be addressed at the same time.

The question of whether to carry out the minimum repair or a broader intervention while the scaffold is in place is a cost question more than a technical one. If the emergency revealed that ridge tiles displaced in the storm were already on the edge of failure — mortar crumbling, other tiles rocking — then re-bedding the whole ridge while the scaffold is up costs a fraction of what it would cost to erect scaffold again for that work in six months. We present these options clearly and honestly without pressuring any decision, because the homeowner's financial situation and their view of the property's future are factors we cannot assess on their behalf.

Insurance claims for storm damage require documentation that confirms the cause was a weather event rather than pre-existing deterioration. Our written emergency assessment includes the condition of the surrounding roof at the time of our attendance, photographic evidence of the storm damage, and a clear statement of what we observed. Most UK building insurance policies cover sudden storm damage. Pre-existing deterioration that the storm exacerbated is a more complex claim, and having our written assessment at the time of the event — rather than reconstructed weeks later — is important for that conversation with the insurer. Call 0152 474 5928 for 24/7 emergency cover across Lancaster and Morecambe.