Storm

Storm Damage Roof Checklist for Overland Park Homeowners

By Overland Park Roof Repair · September 9, 2026 · 7 min read

The storm came through around dinner, the hail sounded like gravel on the roof for four minutes, and now the sun's out and there's already a truck with out-of-state plates parked at the end of the cul-de-sac. Here's what to do in the next 24 hours, in order.

Right away: is water coming in?

Walk every room and look at ceilings, especially under valleys, around chimneys and at the top corners of exterior walls. Check the attic with a flashlight. If water is coming in:

• Move furniture, put down a bucket, and if it's dripping through a light fixture, turn off that breaker.
• Poke a small hole in a bulging ceiling to let the water out before the drywall comes down in one piece.
• Call a roofer for a tarp. Emergency roof repair Overland Park roofers do after a storm usually starts with a tarp — $300–$700 for a typical one. Most policies expect you to prevent further damage; ask your insurer whether the tarp is covered, and keep the receipt.
• Photograph the interior damage before you clean anything up.

If no water is coming in, you have time. Use it.

Within the hour: photograph the ground evidence

Hail damage on shingles is invisible from the ground and not always obvious up close. What proves the storm hit your house hard enough to matter is the soft metal. Walk the property with your phone and photograph:

• Dents in gutters and downspouts — run your hand along the bottom of the gutter
• The AC condenser: bent fins are the single most reliable hail indicator
• Window screens, torn or dented
• The mailbox, grill lid, and any painted metal outdoor furniture
• Splatter marks — clean spots on a dirty deck rail, fence or driveway where hail knocked the grime off
• Shredded leaves and stripped branches
• Any shingles, ridge caps or pieces of shingle in the yard
• A hailstone next to a coin or tape measure, if any are left

Date-stamped photos of this stuff are useful evidence when you talk to your insurer. It costs nothing and it's gone in a week.

Same day: check the roof from the ground only

Stand back and look at each slope with binoculars if you have them. You're looking for:

• Missing shingles or tabs — usually on the slope that faced the wind, which here means south or west
• Creased shingles: a horizontal line across a tab where the wind folded it up and let it back down
• Ridge caps lifted or gone
• A dented or missing vent cap, or a bent turbine
• Debris in the valleys
• Anything hanging off the gutter

Don't go up. A shingle roof after hail is covered in loose granules and slides like ball bearings, and you can't assess bruising by eye anyway.

What hail actually does, so you know what you're waiting to hear

A hailstone hits a shingle and crushes the fiberglass mat under it, knocking the granules loose in a circle. The result is a bruise: a soft spot that gives under your thumb, usually with a little bare asphalt showing. Enough bruises on a slope and the roof may need replacing rather than repairing, because every bruise is a spot where the asphalt is now exposed to sun and will crack within a couple of years. On older, brittle shingles the stone cracks the mat outright. Class 4 shingles are built to take the hit without the mat failing — the Class 4 page explains how. Some Kansas carriers offer a premium credit for a Class 4 roof; ask your agent for the figure.

Straight-line wind is the other Overland Park storm. It doesn't bruise; it lifts. A shingle whose seal strip has aged out gets picked up, creased at the nail line, and either dropped back or carried into the neighbor's yard. The creased ones look fine from the ground and leak the next time it rains sideways.

A roof storm damage assessment, step by step

When a roofer comes out, a careful roof storm damage assessment follows a pattern you can watch for:

1. The soft metal first. Gutters, downspouts, vent caps and the AC fins show whether hail was big enough to matter.
2. Each slope in turn. The slopes that faced the storm get the closest look, but all of them should be walked.
3. Shingle by shingle in sample areas. Bruises are found by touch as much as by eye.
4. The ridge, valleys and flashing. Wind damage often shows at the edges first.
5. The attic, if there's any sign of water.
6. Photos and a written estimate, labeled by slope, that you keep whether or not you hire them.

If the visit skips most of these, it was a sales stop, not an assessment.

Mistakes people make in the first week

• Cleaning up the yard and throwing away shingle pieces before photographing them
• Climbing a wet, granule-covered roof to look for themselves
• Signing with the first company at the door because the neighbors did
• Waiting months to call. Policies set their own time limits for reporting damage, so check yours or ask your agent

If it was wind, not hail

Straight-line wind leaves a different trail. Look for shingle pieces in the yard, tabs flipped up along the edges, and ridge caps out of line on the slope that faced the gusts. Creased shingles can look normal from the ground, so a pair of binoculars helps. Wind damage often starts small and gets worse in the next storm, so it's worth getting looked at even if nothing is leaking yet.

Keep a storm file

Start a folder, paper or on your phone, the same day: dated photos, the tarp receipt, the names of everyone who came to the door, the date you called your insurer and the claim number. Add each written estimate as it arrives. When questions come up later, the answers are in one place.

Before you sign anything

• Don't sign on the porch. The person who knocked on your door within hours of the storm is not the one you want on your roof. Anything worth signing is worth a day.
• Check the roofer's registration. Kansas doesn't issue a state roofing license, but roofing contractors must register with the Kansas Attorney General's office. Ask for the registration number and check it with the Attorney General's office before you sign. Your city may have its own contractor or permit rules — check with its building department. This guide's rule: We only use roofers registered with the Kansas Attorney General — ask for their roofing registration number.
• Don't accept an offer to cover your deductible. Your deductible is yours to pay. A roofer who offers to cover, waive or rebate it is a red flag — offers like that can break Kansas law and your policy terms. If you're unsure, ask your insurer or the Kansas Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division.
• Don't sign an assignment of benefits or a "contingency agreement" that commits you to a company before the claim is even approved.

The post on questions to ask roofing contractors in Overland Park has the full list.

Then: call your insurer and get a written estimate

A claim isn't automatic. Adjusters often check hail damage in marked test squares; ask your insurer how they assess it. Photograph the damage yourself and call your insurer or agent. A roofer can inspect and give you a written repair or replacement estimate; the insurer's adjuster decides what the policy pays. Only you — or a public adjuster licensed by the Kansas Insurance Department — negotiate the claim. Get that estimate from a roofer who'll still be here next year. The whole process is on the hail damage and insurance claims page.

If the damage turns out to be minor, the fix may be a few shingles and a vent cap, $400–$1,200. How a claim could affect your policy is a question for your agent.