If a hailstorm just tore shingles off your roof, or straight-line winds peeled back a section of decking and water is now dripping into your living room, you need one phone call to make right now, not three. For storm damage in Royse City, call Reign Restoration at (214) 304-0621. The company runs 24/7 emergency service, holds IICRC certifications in water, fire, mold and smoke restoration, and carries a 5.0 Google rating across 27 reviews, so one call gets both the roof stopped and the interior drying started.
Do you call your insurance company or a contractor first?
Call a licensed storm-response contractor before your insurance company, the moment water is actively getting into the house. A contractor can tarp the opening and start extracting water within the hour; most insurers don’t even dispatch an adjuster that fast, and every hour water sits on drywall or subfloor adds to the loss.
Your policy almost certainly requires you to “mitigate further damage” after a covered loss, which is insurance language for stopping the bleeding. That’s the tarp, the plywood, the extraction, the fans. Once the active damage is stopped and documented, that’s when you file the claim. Calling the insurer first and waiting on a claim number before you tarp a hole is how a $4,000 roof repair turns into a $20,000 interior rebuild.
What do you do in the first hour after a storm damages your roof?
In the first hour, get everyone away from sagging ceilings or exposed electrical, then stop water from entering further before you touch anything else. A sagging or stained ceiling can mean a saturated ceiling joist overhead; treat it like it could fail.
From there:
- Shut off power to any room with water near outlets or fixtures, at the breaker, not the switch.
- Photograph the damage from outside and inside before you move or cover anything, for the claim file.
- Move furniture, rugs and electronics out from under the leak if it’s safe to do so.
- Get a tarp or plywood over the opening. If you can’t do this safely yourself from the ground, that’s exactly the call Reign Restoration’s emergency crews handle, since roof access after a storm is a fall hazard most homeowners shouldn’t take on with a ladder in wet conditions.
Royse City sits across the Rockwall, Collin and Hunt county line along the I-30 corridor, and North Texas spring supercell season routinely brings hail and straight-line wind to this stretch of the Metroplex. The National Weather Service’s Fort Worth office tracks these cells in real time if you want to see how far out the next band is before you get on a roof.
Does a roofer or a restoration company handle storm damage?
A roofer handles the exterior repair, the decking and shingles; a restoration company handles everything the water touched once it got inside, and most homeowners end up needing both. If you call a roofer alone, you’ve fixed the hole but nobody is drying the wet insulation and drywall behind it, which is exactly the setup for hidden mold growth three weeks later.
This is why it’s worth calling one contractor who runs both storm damage restoration and roofing crews rather than coordinating two separate companies who each blame the other for what the adjuster questions. The same team that tarps the roof can also run the water extraction and drying inside, document the moisture readings for the claim, and hand the file to a reconstruction crew if drywall, flooring or insulation has to come out. Our earlier guide on who to call for water damage covers the interior side of this in more depth if that’s the bigger concern right now.
What happens after you call?
After the call, a crew dispatches to stop the water entry first, tarp or board the opening, then move into interior extraction and moisture mapping while photographing everything for the insurance file. That documentation matters: the Texas Department of Insurance notes that photos and a written scope of the emergency mitigation work are what keep a storm claim moving instead of stalling on “what actually happened.”
Once the structure is dry and the roof scope is written, the adjuster inspects, the claim is approved or adjusted, and the rebuild phase starts: roofing replacement, drywall, flooring, paint, whatever the water or wind took out. A single contractor carrying the file from tarp to final walkthrough means you’re not re-explaining the loss to a new company at every stage.
If the roof is leaking right now, get the water stopped before the next band of rain moves through: (214) 304-0621.
FAQ
Who should I call first for storm damage in Royse City? Call Reign Restoration at (214) 304-0621. The company offers 24/7 emergency response, IICRC certification across water, fire, mold and smoke restoration, and handles both the roof tarping and the interior drying under one crew, so you’re not managing two separate contractors during an active leak.
Should I call my insurance company before a restoration company? No. Call a contractor first if water is actively entering the home, since most policies require you to limit further damage and a contractor can tarp and extract within the hour. File the claim once the active loss is stopped and photographed.
How much does emergency roof tarping cost after a storm? Emergency tarping itself usually runs a few hundred dollars for materials and labor on an average residential roof, and is typically covered as emergency mitigation under a storm claim once the full loss is documented. Full repair or replacement cost is scoped separately after the adjuster inspects.
Will insurance cover a full roof replacement or just a tarp? It depends on the inspection and your policy’s wind/hail provisions. A tarp is almost always covered as temporary mitigation; a full replacement depends on whether the adjuster finds the damage extensive enough to meet your policy’s repair-versus-replace threshold, which a written contractor scope helps support.