How a Hawaii home fails in a hurricane
A house in a hurricane fails like a chain — at its weakest link. For nearly every home, the weak links are the connections: roof to walls, walls to foundation, and structural members at corners and gable ends. Between 50% and 70% of hurricane-induced losses come from roof failure alone.
Hurricane clips (also called hurricane ties, hurricane straps, hurricane connectors, or — in Hawaii's official building documents — Wind Resistive Devices) are engineered steel connectors that reinforce those critical connections. Most are about the size of your palm. They turn a frame held together by nails and gravity into a frame held together by steel and engineering. When wind pulls up on the roof, steel ties hold it down to the walls. When wind pushes the walls sideways, steel anchors hold them to the foundation. The structure resists the storm as one piece instead of coming apart at the joints.
In equivalent terms, a basic hurricane clip installation around the roof of a single-family home is like parking 8 to 12 full-size SUVs around the periphery as hold-down weight. They quadruple (4x) the hold-down force at the roof-to-wall connection.
Simpson Strong-Tie: the industry standard
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HHR specifies and Kore Construction installs Simpson Strong-Tie hurricane connectors — the worldwide leader in engineered structural connectors. Simpson's hurricane connector systems are designed and laboratory-tested for the load conditions of severe wind events. Gerry Peters has worked with Simpson Strong-Tie products for more than four decades, including models specifically developed for Hawaii applications (the HPT and HGA series, among others).
For Hawaii's salt-air environment, the connectors are double-galvanized, then painted on installation, providing decades of corrosion resistance. |
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What Hawaii building code requires
Hawaii counties have required hurricane clips on new residential construction since 1994 — two years after Hurricane Iniki made the existing standards' inadequacy undeniable. If your Oahu home was built before 1994, it almost certainly has no hurricane clips at all. If it was built after 1994, it has some — but probably not all the connectors it should.
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Even modern code has gaps. Most code-compliant Hawaii homes are still missing connectors in the places where the islands' geography and wind patterns create extra stress: V-gable peaks, horizontal lookout beams, Dutch gable peaks, carport tie-downs, and the lateral bracing around large openings. The State of Hawaii's own Guide to Hurricane Strengthening of Hawaii Single-Family Residences (published by the DCCA Insurance Division) documents these gaps in detail.
No Hawaii homes — of any year, in any neighborhood, at any price point — were built with hurricane protection for windows, sliding glass doors, double entry doors, stained glass doors, or garage doors. Garage doors matter especially: when one fails in a hurricane, the sudden interior pressurization is often what blows the roof off. |
Hawaii construction types and why they matter
Hurricane clip installation in Hawaii is not generic carpentry. Hawaii homes vary enormously: single-wall construction (common in plantation-era and many post-war homes), double-wall construction, post-and-pier foundations, slab-on-grade, midcentury tract, and modern custom builds. Each construction type has different load paths, different failure modes, and a different optimal connector pattern. A retrofit designed for one construction type but applied to another leaves gaps where they matter most.
Most of what HHR contributes is making sure your retrofit fits your specific house — not somebody else's.
What a typical hurricane retrofit looks like
For a typical Oahu single-family home, a hurricane retrofit installs engineered connectors at the key load paths: rafter-to-top-plate (the roof-to-wall connection), top-plate-to-stud, stud-to-bottom-plate, and bottom-plate-to-foundation. Most of the work happens in the attic and around the home's perimeter. The job typically takes one to two days. No need to move out, no demolition, no visible change to your home's appearance.
Most Oahu homes need several hundred to a thousand individual connectors, depending on size and configuration. The retrofit is permanent — once installed, the connectors require no maintenance beyond normal exterior painting every several years.
Not On Roof Permanently — Deploys in 10 Minutes
