Tybee Island Roofing: Built for the Beach

The entire island is a mandatory evacuation zone for any storm Cat 1 or stronger — that's not a recommendation, it's an order from Chatham County Emergency Management once the threat is in cone. The Lazaretto Creek bridge becomes the bottleneck. We work that timeline backward: pre-storm tarping happens before the bridge closes, and our crews don't return until the evacuation officially lifts. If you've got an active leak going into the storm, get on our priority list early.

Most of Tybee sits in FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas AE or VE — the highest flood-risk classifications in the continental U.S. The flood zone itself is a foundation issue, but it shapes your roof in two ways: insurance underwriters require current wind mitigation documentation to write or renew NFIP-supplemented coastal policies, and elevated stilt construction in VE zones changes the staging logistics. We deliver the wind mitigation report at closeout so it's on file when underwriting comes around.

Standard galvanized fasteners corrode in 3 to 5 years on Tybee. The salt mist coming off the Atlantic is direct exposure — there's no neighborhood with a tree canopy buffer here. Once the nail head rusts away, the shingle has nothing holding it down and the next squall sends it. 316 marine-grade stainless is impervious to chloride attack and lasts the life of the roof. It's a few hundred dollars more on a typical reroof and it doubles your usable lifespan on the island.

Yes. On a comprehensive coastal hardening project, the shutter installer and the roofer have to coordinate fastener locations on the eave fascia and any overhead anchor points. We've worked with most of the local shutter shops on Tybee and Wilmington Island — we'll mark the shutter anchor zones on the deck before the underlayment goes down so the shutter company has clean wood to bite into when they install or remove panels seasonally.

Carriers underwrite Tybee roofs differently than inland Chatham. They'll ask for the year of the last reroof, the wind mitigation report, fastener spec, and whether the install was done to the 140 mph code. Roofs over 15 years old or with no wind mitigation report on file are increasingly hard to renew on the open market — some owners end up on the Georgia Underwriting Association FAIR Plan. A current Talya wind mitigation report keeps you in the standard market.

Tybee Island is a 140 mph ultimate design wind speed zone under ASCE 7-16, with localized exposure category D (open coastline) on most oceanfront properties. That requires class H shingles or better, 6-nail fastening pattern, ring-shank nails, sealed hip-and-ridge cap, and reinforced starter strips at every eave and rake. We document all of that in the wind mitigation report. Anything less is a code violation and uninsurable on the island.

Built right with 316 stainless fasteners and aluminum flashing, you'll get 25 to 30 years out of an architectural shingle on Tybee. Built with standard galvanized — which is what most off-island contractors quote — you're looking at 8 to 12 years before the nails fail and shingles start blowing. Standing seam Galvalume metal in this environment runs 50+ years. It's a question of how often you want to rebuild.

Repair makes sense when the damage is localized — a few lifted shingles, one penetration leak, a single torn ridge — and the rest of the roof is still in good shape with current fasteners. Replace is the right answer when nail-line corrosion is widespread (you can spot it from the rust streaks on the underside of the deck), the underlayment is more than 15 years old, or the shingles have lost granule coverage across multiple slopes. We'll do an honest walk and tell you which you're looking at.

Tybee priority clients get same-day or next-morning tarping the moment the evacuation order lifts and the Lazaretto Creek bridge reopens. We pre-position tarp supplies on the truck before landfall and queue properties by date of last contact, so the homes that called us before the storm are first on the list when the road clears. Permanent repairs get scheduled once the wind has dropped and the materials match-out is complete.