Dock Hurricane Playbook: Before, During & After the Storm
The dock-specific storm routine — what to sweep off, what to check before the season, what to shut down, and the order to inspect in afterward.
Key takeaways
- Everything that is not structurally fastened comes off the dock — furniture, fenders, coolers, planters, hoses, and the contents of the dock box. Loose gear is what breaks docks.
- Shut the dock circuits off at the breaker before the storm. That is the only electrical step that is genuinely safe for a homeowner, and after flooding a licensed electrician verifies before anything goes back on.
- Decking and fastener checks belong in spring, not the week a system forms. A loose board in April is a small fix; in September it is a hole in your dock.
- After the storm, inspect from dry land in order — power, then pilings, then frame, then decking and hardware. Do not step on the dock until the first three check out.
- Photograph your dock intact before the season and again after any damage. Coverage varies by policy, so confirm with your agent what your carrier wants documented.
Your dock takes the storm first. It sits out over the water, it is covered in things that are not bolted down, and it is the one structure on your property where a single overlooked detail — a loose board, an unlatched dock box, a breaker left on — turns into damage that spreads to everything around it.
This is the playbook for the platform itself: what to sweep off, what to check before the season starts, what to shut down as weather approaches, and the exact order to walk your dock in once it is over. Your boat and your lift have their own decisions to make. This page is about the dock.
What should you clear off the dock before a storm?
Everything that is not structurally fastened comes off and goes inside. Loose gear is the single most preventable source of dock damage we see. A cushion, a cooler, or a fender does not simply blow away — it gets picked up, driven into decking and railings, and dropped in the canal. Multiply that by every dock on your street and you understand why sweeping matters.
| What is on your dock | Where it goes | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Chairs, benches, tables, cushions | Inside the garage or house | Light and broad — they catch wind first and hit hard |
| Cooler, grill, fish-cleaning gear | Inside | Heavy enough to break decking and railing |
| Fenders, spare lines, buoys | Inside; keep only lines actively securing something | Loose fenders batter the structure and tangle in hardware |
| Dock box contents | Empty it, latch it, confirm it is through-bolted | Water gets in, a full box is heavy, and an unbolted box is a large loose item |
| Removable ladder | Pull it and store it | Brackets bend and the ladder becomes a battering ram |
| Planters, decor, solar path lights | Inside | Small, hard, and plentiful |
| Hose, hose reel, extension cords | Coil and store inside | They snag, whip, and pull fittings apart |
The dock box fools people. It is storage, not a safe — assume water gets in, and never treat it as the place your sweep ends.
What decking and fastener checks matter before the season?
The checks that find loose parts — fasteners backing out, boards that move, and corroded hardware that has lost its grip. These belong on your calendar in spring, while the water is calm and crews have availability. A board re-fastened in April is a twenty-minute job; the same board with a system in the Gulf is not something anyone can get to.
Walk the whole dock and look hard at:
- Every board, near both ends. Step on it. A board that flexes, springs back, or clicks has lost its bite in the joist below.
- Fastener heads. Screws backing out above the deck, rust weeping down from a head, and missing fasteners all mean the connection is done.
- Frame connections. Where stringers meet pilings and brackets bolt through is where real load transfers. Rust bleeding from a bolt hole means it has been working.
- Hardware you pull on. Cleats, ladder brackets, and rail posts take direct load and loosen quietly.
- The landward connection. Where the dock meets the seawall or shoreline is the joint scour finds first.
Fasteners matter more in a storm because a well-fastened deck behaves as one unit. One loose board changes that: wind gets underneath, lifts it out, and the boards on either side of the new gap are next. Small openings become large ones fast.
Should you shut off power and water to the dock?
Yes — kill the dock circuits at the breaker panel and shut the water off at the house valve before the weather arrives. Shutting power off ahead of a storm is the only electrical action that is genuinely safe for a homeowner to take, and it is worth doing properly.
- Label your breakers now, not in the dark with a flashlight. Dock power, lift, dock lighting, and fish lights are often separate circuits.
- Switch them off at the panel and unplug anything cord-connected — chargers, pumps, plug-in transformers.
- Shut the water supply to the dock at the house valve. A hose bib that snaps off with the line live will run fresh water for days while you are gone.
- After flooding, leave it off. Anything that went underwater is suspect, and energized hardware near or in the water is a hazard you cannot see. A licensed electrician verifies the system before power goes back to dock circuits — the reasoning is spelled out in post-storm electrical safety.
What are the final moves as the storm approaches?
Nothing loose, no power, no water, and photos. In the last day the list gets short on purpose, because the last day is when people start improvising.
Do a final sweep with a flashlight and pick up what the first pass missed. Confirm the breakers are off. Then photograph the dock intact — wide shots from both ends, close-ups of decking, hardware, and the connection to shore. Documented before-condition is the most useful thing you can hand an adjuster later, and it costs five minutes. What your carrier expects varies by policy, so ask your agent before the season what they want on file; dock storm damage and insurance claims covers how claims typically get documented.
The full time-boxed version of this sequence lives in our 72-hour checklist. One rule outranks everything on it: if an evacuation order is issued for your zone, go. Nothing on a dock is worth staying for.
What order do you inspect a dock in after the storm?
From dry land, from the bottom up: power, then pilings, then frame, then decking and hardware — and you do not set foot on it until the first three check out.
- Electrical, from a distance. Treat every downed line as live. Look for damaged conduit, a pulled-loose pedestal, or a light fixture hanging in the water, and stay out of the water entirely.
- Pilings. Sight down the row from shore. You are looking for a post out of line, one that sits lower than its neighbors, or churned and hollowed bottom where a piling enters the water.
- Frame and the landward connection. Look for a shifted or dropped stringer, and for washed-out soil where the dock ties into the shoreline.
- Decking and hardware. Missing or lifted boards, exposed fasteners, bent cleats and brackets.
Only when all of that reads clean do you step on, carefully, close to a piling rather than mid-span. If the dock sways, bounces, or creaks in a way it did not before, get off and stop. The full walk-through, including what to photograph and in what order, is in post-storm dock triage.
When should you call instead of handling it yourself?
Call when anything structural has moved, when the electrical was underwater, or when the dock is going to be part of a claim. Specifically: a piling out of plumb or sitting low, a dock that moves differently underfoot, a shifted connection at the shoreline, soil missing behind the seawall, or framing and boards gone.
Call, too, when you see nothing and still have doubts. The damage that ends docks here is usually invisible — surge takes the soil out from around pilings, the structure keeps standing, and the weakness shows up under load in the next storm rather than this one.
Florida Lifts & Docks has been building and rebuilding docks on this coast since 2008, with our own local crew that we never sub out and permitting handled in-house. See what we build on our custom docks page, what we fix on dock repair, or call (239) 397-3400 for a free on-site inspection, repair, or rebuild estimate.