Beaumont, Texas Hurricane Shutters and Storm Shutters
Beaumont, Texas is a city on the coast of Texas. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the Gulf Coast. Oil is the leading export of the city, and a major part of the local economy. The city also is supported by the Port of Beaumont, which is the nations fourth largest seaport, and the second largest military seaport in the world.
The city of Beaumont, Texas has a humid subtropical climate, and that region of Texas gets the most rainfall in the state, receiving more than 48 inches annually. This is because of the warm gulf waters that carry humid air to the area, where it condenses and falls as rain. Hurricanes also regularly strike the area. The most damaging to hit Beaumont to date was Hurricane Ike in 2008. Hurricane Ike was the largest and most destructive hurricane to ever hit Beaumont, and it caused thirty two billion dollars worth of damage to the Texas area. This makes it the third most costly hurricane in United States history.
After Hurricane Ike, the Beaumont, Texas housing market looked like a disaster, but looks can be deceiving. The prices of housing initially went down, but as soon as homeowners whose residences were damaged or destroyed in the hurricane began receiving insurance payouts, many new homes were built or purchased, causing prices to rise. And with the hurricane fresh in their minds, newly built or purchased homes were fitted with hurricane shutters. A large portion of homes that remained standing after the storm were also retro-fit with hurricane shutters to protect them.
But fitting the homes with hurricane shutters had another benefit besides the obvious reasons of safety: They raised the resale values of the homes. Hurricane shutters, especially reinforced rolling shutters in either a mid-range or upscale home can return about eighty percent of the cost at resale. This is a huge reason for homeowners to add shutters to their home. Roll-down shutters cover your windows and doors, protecting your home from high winds and wind-borne debris. Imagine the convenience of shutters that automatically roll down when you press a button, taking all the work out of the equation. If the power is out, they can also be rolled down manually. This convenience factor makes them highly prized by new homeowners.
Beaumont, Texas was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Ike, but like any good Texan, you can’t keep it down for long. Houses were re-built, safer than ever before, and the housing prices are slowly going back to their pre-hurricane amounts.
