Gulfport is the second largest city in Mississippi, and is about an hour’s drive from New Orleans. It’s a city perched right on the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s vulnerable to hurricanes. In 2005, Gulfport was hit by the strongest side of Hurricane Katrina, and much of Gulfport was flooded or destroyed. And that’s not the only hurricane that’s ever hit Gulfport: Much of Gulfport was also severely damaged by Hurricane Camille in 1969.
When Katrina hit the shore with its strong east side, a great deal of Gulfport was flooded, and what the flood didn’t get was destroyed in one day by the powerful hurricane-force winds. The storm lasted more than 16 hours and the storm surge was more than twenty eight feet in some sections of the city. The Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi-Gulfport won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in journalism for its coverage of the devastation that Katrina caused in the area.
Gulfport is being rebuilt, but it is still a slow process, and the city has not come back completely, even five years later. If you have a home in Gulfport, you should have hurricane shutters on it; without them, you don’t stand a chance against the high winds of a hurricane. There are many types of shutters available: Colonial shutters, roll-down shutters, and Accordion shutters, just to name a few. But Bahama shutters are a very popular style in Gulfport: They are aesthetically pleasing, meet the codes for missile impact resistance, and meets the Florida, Miami-Dade code for hurricane shutters.
Bahama shutters are great for any window, but are especially good for second floors and higher places because it can easily be latched from the inside your home. There’s no need to drag out a ladder and climb whenever you need to close the shutters, and the locking mechanism makes the shutter very strong when it’s closed.
Another reason to choose Bahama shutters is for the ease of exiting the building in case you need to leave in a hurry. The inside latching system makes exiting the house easy. If you use plywood to cover your windows and doors, you’d have to waste precious time taking it down before you could leave, and that is dangerous during a storm. You may have only minutes to get out, and don’t have time to waste. Hurricane shutters that latch on the inside make it much easier to enter and exit fast when it’s necessary.
Bahama shutters come in a variety of colors, and they are sure to have a color that will match your home. The arms and fasteners are made to match the color of the shutters, so there is no jarring differences. It blends together beautifully, and they keep your home ultra safe.
