A Cracked Windshield and Hurricane Season: Fix It in May

Why a storm week is the worst time to have a crack

If a system enters the Gulf and you decide to go, you are likely driving north on I-65 or east on US-98 in rain that comes down harder than the wipers can clear. You may be doing it at night, in stop-and-go traffic, with headlights coming at you from the other side of a divided highway.

That is when a crack stops being background noise. Damaged glass scatters light, so every set of oncoming headlights blooms across the line instead of passing behind it. Wipers chatter over the break. Your eyes keep resolving the crack instead of the brake lights ahead.

The roads themselves make it worse. Standing water builds fast on Battleship Parkway. The Bayway is exposed to crosswind for its whole length. High winds close it, which pushes traffic onto the Causeway and through downtown. Add tree limbs and grit on the pavement afterward and you have the exact conditions that turn a crack into a shattered pane.

There is also the plain question of whether you can see well enough to make a decision at speed with a family in the car. That is a poor thing to discover on the shoulder of US-98 outside Fairhope.

Light is against you as well. The sky goes gray-green in the middle of the afternoon before a system arrives. Every car on Government Street has its headlights on by four. A crack that reads as a thin line at noon turns into a bright streak across your view in that light.

What happens to glass supply after a named storm

Anyone who was here after Sally remembers how long the tarps stayed on roofs. Auto glass follows the same curve as everything else, just with less attention on it.

Driveway appointments from Theodore to Daphne stop entirely while it is still blowing and raining, because primer and urethane need a dry, clean surface and no technician is setting a windshield in a driveway while the wind is still stripping shingles. Shops with no power are not calibrating anybody's camera. Delivery trucks are working around closed roads and their own damage. Warehouses on the coast are in the same weather you are.

Then the backlog arrives all at once. Broken side windows from flying debris, windshields taken out by limbs and a wave of chips from grit on the road, all in the same week. Shops work the list in the order the calls came in. Common part numbers move first. Anything unusual waits behind them.

None of this is a shop failing you. It is a whole industry from Grand Bay to Fairhope trying to serve a month of demand in a week, with fewer working hours in the day than usual.

The calendar matters for a duller reason too. A replacement needs a dry, still day. In May a shop can promise you Tuesday and keep it. In September the whole week can go sideways on a forecast. Rescheduling around a storm track is nobody's idea of planning.

The May checklist for your glass

Fill every chip you have, even the small ones you have stopped noticing. This is the cheapest item on the list and it removes the thing most likely to fail on you during a bad week.

Look hard at the ends of any crack you already live with. A crack that has grown since spring is telling you the answer. Book the replacement now while a shop can schedule you in a calm week.

Change wiper blades that have been baking through a full summer. Rubber that has hardened in the sun chatters and streaks in exactly the rain where you need it to work. Worn blades also scratch glass with sand still on them.

Clear the cowl drains under the bottom edge of the windshield. Live oak leaves, pine straw and seed pods pack into that channel through spring. When the drains block, water backs up against the base of the glass and finds its way into the cabin. That is the same channel that keeps the pinch weld wet year-round.

Check the molding around the glass while you are there. A lifted edge or a gap at a corner is a leak waiting for the first real rain.

Two items on the list cost nothing at all. Walk around the car in good light and write down every chip you find, including the small ones down at the bottom edge where the wipers park. Then photograph the glass while it is intact. That gives you a before picture if you ever have to show an adjuster what the storm did.

Fill any fresh chips before the next system rather than waiting for the season to end. A repair takes a fraction of the time a replacement does, so a shop can usually squeeze one in during a week when a full glass job is out of the question.

After the storm: what to look at

Grit gets everywhere after a blow. The first drive out usually collects a fresh chip or two. Look the glass over in daylight rather than waiting for the next crack to introduce itself.

Listen for a whistle or a rush of wind noise at highway speed that was not there before, particularly if a limb or a piece of debris hit the glass or the A-pillar. That noise can mean the molding lifted or the bond took a hit.

Check the passenger footwell for damp carpet after the next heavy rain. If it is wet, the cause may be a blocked cowl drain rather than the windshield itself. It is worth having somebody tell you which before the glass gets blamed.

If the car sat in floodwater at any depth, get the camera and its wiring behind the mirror looked at along with everything else. Water in that area is not something a dashboard warning light reliably tells you about.

Look at the wiper arms once debris has been on the road. A bent arm or a blade that took a limb drags grit across the glass on every sweep, which is a slow way to ruin a windshield you have just paid for.