The squall line is gone. The damage isn’t.
Rochester Hills storm crews, dispatching now.
When the April 15, 2026 line of severe thunderstorms tore through Oakland County with 75-88 mph gusts and confirmed tornado warnings, Rochester Hills took one of the hardest hits in the metro. We were rolling tarp trucks before the radar cleared Stoney Creek HS and we’re still working the backlog. If your roof is open, a tree is through your ceiling, or your attic is soaked, call Provail Restoration of Bloomfield at (248) 531-8404 — a live dispatcher answers, and a crew heads to 48306, 48307, or 48309 the same hour.
Office 14 miles from Rochester Hills via Opdyke and M-59 · Licensed & insured · Direct insurance billing
After the April 15, 2026 storm
What actually happened, what we saw in Rochester Hills, and what’s still being cleaned up the week of April 16.
The storm system that rolled across southeast Michigan on the evening of April 15, 2026 was not a garden-variety spring thunderstorm. The National Weather Service out of White Lake logged sustained wind gusts between 75 and 88 mph across Oakland and Macomb counties, issued multiple tornado warnings, and ended the night with tens of thousands of DTE customers in the dark. Rochester Hills sat squarely under the worst of it for about forty minutes, from roughly 9:40 pm as the leading edge crossed Opdyke to 10:20 pm when the last cell pushed east of Dequindre.
We got our first Rochester Hills call at 9:52 pm — a penetrative limb strike on an Avon Estates ranch off Tienken. By midnight we were logging calls out of Meadowbrook, Rochester Heights, Stony Creek Ridge, and the Adams Rd corridor north of Walton. The pattern was painfully consistent: ripped ridge caps, lifted architectural shingles on windward slopes, soffit vents blown in, gutters peeled off fascia, and in the older east-side ranches, full sheet loss on three-tab roofs that were already at end of life. Wind-driven rain found every compromised flashing in town.
The tree story is its own chapter. The Clinton River corridor, Bloomer Park, and the long-established subdivisions between Adams and Livernois are heavy with 60- to 70-year-old oaks and maples that were planted in the post-war subdivision wave. Trees that age reach a predictable failure window, and a 75 mph shear event will find every weak union. We counted 21 Rochester Hills addresses with tree-on-structure damage in the first 36 hours alone — not counting simple yard falls.
As of the morning of April 16, we are still running tarping routes, prioritizing homes with active water intrusion over cosmetic damage. DTE has most of Rochester Hills back on power, but pockets around Christian Hills and Butler Ridge were still out overnight. If you’re reading this with a leaking ceiling and a tarp that a neighbor threw up in the dark, call us — a compliant tarp survives the next front; a blue-tarp-from-a- neighbor does not. See our full event recap at /resources/april-2026-oakland-macomb-storm-response.
Storm damage types we handle
Every storm season in Rochester Hills has its own signature. These six categories cover 95% of the work we do here.
Straight-line wind damage
Squall lines are the real villain of April and May in Oakland County. 60-80 mph sustained winds lift shingles on windward slopes, tear off ridge caps, punch out soffit vents, and rip gutters off fascia. We see it most on ranches north of Auburn Rd and in the post-2000 subdivisions along Adams where architectural shingles aged into their second decade.
Tree impact — Clinton River corridor oaks
The mature oak and silver maple canopy from Bloomer Park down through the Clinton River greenway is majestic until a 75 mph gust finds a compromised union. We handle everything from limb strikes (through a single roof slope) to full crush events where a trunk has opened the envelope — including the structural engineering coordination those jobs always need.
Hail damage on asphalt shingles
Oakland County summer hail events are usually pea to quarter size, and the damage reads as granule loss and impact bruising on asphalt shingles, dents on aluminum gutters and downspouts, and pocked soft metals around roof penetrations. We document impact density per hundred square feet for the adjuster — the way a public adjuster would want to see it.
Wind-driven rain intrusion
This is the sneaky one. Wind didn’t open a hole you can see from the driveway — it opened a flashing seam, a vent boot, or a missing siding lap, and now your attic insulation is a sponge and your Hardie wall cavity is holding water against sheathing. We do moisture mapping from attic ridge to rim joist to find every path the storm took.
Power surge and lightning damage
Direct lightning strikes in Rochester Hills are rare; induced surge from a nearby strike or a DTE line slap during a squall is common. We work with electrical contractors on surge damage assessment and coordinate with your carrier on the scope — most policies split this from the dwelling claim, and missing that distinction costs homeowners thousands.
Flooded basement from storm runoff
When 1.5 inches of rain falls in forty minutes, Rochester Hills’ older east-side subdivisions see storm sewer backup and surface runoff push into basements through window wells, grading failures, and overworked sump pits. This is water-damage work that starts with a storm trigger — extraction, moisture mapping, and structural drying, same as any Category 2 loss.
Emergency tarp & board-up response
The first twelve hours set the whole restoration trajectory. Here is what we actually do when a Rochester Hills crew arrives.
We aim to be on site in Rochester Hills within 60 to 90 minutes of a dispatch call during an active event, and under 45 minutes once the storm has passed and the crews are staged. The first task is never cosmetic — it is stopping the building from taking more damage. That means a structural walkaround, a power and gas check if a tree is involved, and then either a tarp, a board-up, or both.
Our tarp spec is not the blue poly rectangle your neighbor stapled up at midnight. We install heavy-duty reinforced tarps with a three-foot minimum overlap up-slope of the damage, 2x4 batten strapping on both edges, and 15 lb roofing felt underneath for short-term jobs (anything under two weeks). If the structural repair timeline is longer than that — which, after an event like April 15, it will be for a lot of Rochester Hills homes — we upgrade to a Roof Armor-grade membrane that is rated for 30 to 90 days of weather exposure without degrading.
Board-up is its own craft. We use half-inch plywood minimum, sized to lap the opening by at least four inches on every edge, and we screw rather than nail on historic homes along Tienken Rd and in the older Rochester Heights streets where original trim is part of the home’s value. A nail pattern every six inches around a window on a 1958 ranch can do more damage than the storm did — we take the slower route and screw into the rough opening.
Every stabilization visit is documented: timestamped photos from multiple angles, a written scope of the emergency work, and a reading of any ambient moisture we found under the damage. That packet goes to your insurance carrier with the first mitigation invoice. We also coordinate with the Rochester Hills Building Department on any post-storm emergency permits that a larger board-up or temporary weather wall might require — we’ve worked with their inspectors long enough to know which jobs need a same-day permit pull and which can be reconciled after repair begins.
Tree impact & structural damage
There is a real engineering difference between ‘a limb dented our gutter’ and ‘an oak opened our second floor.’
Tree-on-structure damage sorts cleanly into three categories: limb strike (branches have hit the envelope but stayed superficial), penetration (a limb or trunk has pierced sheathing and is now sitting inside the home), and crush (the dead load of the tree has deformed the roof or wall framing). Each of these has its own restoration path and its own documentation requirement for the carrier.
The moment a tree has penetrated or crushed framing in a Rochester Hills home, a licensed structural engineer gets involved. This is non-negotiable — not because we are cautious, but because the carrier will require a stamped report before they sign off on the structural scope, and because moving a tree off a compromised truss without an engineering plan can turn a repairable frame into a rebuild. We have a short list of PE-stamped engineers who know the post-war and 1990s framing methods typical of Avon Estates, Butler Ridge, and Meadowbrook, and we coordinate their site visit within 24 to 48 hours of stabilization.
The subdivision-level reality: on a 1960s ranch with 2x6 stick framing, a silver maple trunk rarely does catastrophic damage — the framing holds and the envelope is the repair. On a late-90s truss-roof colonial, a similar-diameter trunk can take out a primary load path, and now you’re looking at engineered lumber replacement and temporary shoring before any interior reconstruction starts. We don’t self-perform tree removal — we partner with two licensed Rochester-area arborists who handle the rigging and disposal — but we own the stabilization, the drying, the structural coordination, and the reconstruction from first call through final sign-off.
Insurance & documentation
Storm claims live or die on documentation. Here’s how we build the packet so your adjuster can approve it.
Storm claims differ from a routine water loss in one critical way: the carrier will want to correlate your damage to a specific weather event. That means we pull official NOAA storm reports and, where available, the National Weather Service Local Storm Report log for the date and time, plus the nearest Oakland County ASOS station wind gust record. For the April 15, 2026 event, the Pontiac (KPTK) station recorded peak gusts in the mid-80s, and that reading ends up in the exhibit list of every claim we write for this storm.
Scope estimates are written in Xactimate, which is the platform every Michigan carrier’s adjuster uses. Storm estimates have their own nuances — we separate the dwelling scope from any detached-structure scope (fence, shed, gazebo), itemize emergency mitigation under the Emergency Services price list instead of rolling it into the rebuild, and attach a discrete O&P (overhead and profit) line when the scope involves three or more trades, which almost every tree-impact job does.
The piece homeowners miss most often: many Oakland County policies now carry a separate wind and hail deductible — often expressed as a percentage of Coverage A (the dwelling amount) rather than a flat dollar figure. A 2% wind/hail deductible on a $450,000 Rochester Hills home is $9,000 out-of-pocket before the carrier pays anything. We read your declarations page before we finalize the estimate so there are no surprises at settlement, and we structure the scope to reflect what’s actually recoverable under your specific endorsement.
Why Rochester Hills calls us after storms
Three things that matter when the phone tree is jammed and every restoration shop in the metro is oversubscribed.
We answer the phone at 2 am on a Tuesday
During the April 15 event our dispatch line never rolled to voicemail. When a squall line is moving and your attic is filling with water, the restoration company that answers is the restoration company that saves the floor joists. We are that company in Rochester Hills.
Our tarps are actually rated for the next front
A blue tarp held down with a tire tells the carrier you had damage. A spec-compliant tarp with battens and underlayment tells the carrier you mitigated. That difference shows up in the check. We install mitigation-grade weather protection every single time, even on a 3 am call.
We know who to call when a tree punched through
Tree-impact jobs live or die on the coordination — arborist, structural engineer, carrier, permit office, reconstruction crew. We own that playbook for Rochester Hills specifically. You make one call and we sequence the rest so your household isn’t juggling six contractors in week one.
Questions we’re hearing this week
Answers for the calls that have come in since the April 15, 2026 storm cleared.
The April 15 storm took shingles off half our roof — can you tarp tonight?
Yes, if you call before crews cap out for the evening. We run staggered tarp crews through the night after a major event; during the April 15 response we tarped in Rochester Hills from about 10:30 pm until sunrise on the 16th. Our tarp spec is a reinforced poly membrane with 2x4 batten anchoring and a three-foot overlap above the damage line, 15 lb felt underlayment for short-term cover. That configuration survives a second front — which, in Michigan April, is never theoretical.
A maple fell on our Avon Estates ranch — do we need a structural engineer?
If the trunk or a primary limb penetrated the envelope or is resting on a load-bearing wall or truss chord, yes. Every carrier we work with will require a stamped engineer report before they authorize the structural scope, and we would require it before allowing reconstruction crews to touch the frame. We schedule the engineer within 24 to 48 hours of stabilization. If the tree only glanced the roof slope or stayed outside the structure, an engineer usually isn’t required and the repair is a roofing scope.
Our sump pump ran nonstop during the storm and then failed — is that covered?
It depends on the failure mode and your policy endorsements. A sudden mechanical failure during a covered storm event is often covered under a water backup or sump overflow endorsement — but not under the base policy. Gradual wear-and-out failure is not covered anywhere. We’ll read the declarations page with you before you file, because filing the claim on the wrong coverage line is a common way to get denied.
Do you coordinate tree removal or just the structural side?
We partner, we don’t self-perform. Tree rigging, cutting, and disposal is specialized work and we stay in our lane. We have two licensed Rochester-area arborists we call directly and sequence into the job — typically within 6 to 12 hours of our arrival. They handle the tree; we handle stabilization, drying, engineering coordination, and reconstruction. One invoice from us, one invoice from the arborist, both documented into the claim.
How fast can you be in Meadowbrook when the next squall hits?
From our Bloomfield Township office, Meadowbrook is about 14 miles via Opdyke and M-59 to Adams Rd. Under calm conditions that is a 20-minute drive. During an active storm response — when multiple crews are already deployed and the freeways are slowed — we commit to a 60 to 90 minute arrival window and usually beat it. If you are in 48306, 48307, or 48309 and calling during the event, you are getting a crew.
Our Oakland University rental got hit — how do we handle multi-tenant storm damage?
Student rentals and small multi-family buildings near OU are their own category. We sequence the work so the least-damaged units can be re-occupied first, coordinate with the landlord’s carrier on the dwelling scope, and work directly with tenants on contents mitigation where appropriate. We’ll also coordinate with Rochester Community Schools calendars and OU housing if the timing involves student move-outs — that came up a few times in the last event.
Is wind-driven rain in our attic covered by homeowners or flood?
Wind-driven rain is almost always a homeowners claim, not a flood claim — but with one important qualifier. The standard homeowners policy covers interior water damage when wind first created an opening (missing shingles, blown-in vent, opened flashing) and then rain entered through that opening. If the water came in without a wind-created opening — say, ice-dam ponding or a pre-existing roof defect — that is a coverage argument. Flood insurance specifically covers rising ground water, which is a different peril entirely.
What documentation do you provide for the insurance claim?
The full packet: timestamped exterior and interior photos from every damaged elevation, a narrative emergency-services scope, moisture readings logged at intake and at every drying checkpoint, equipment logs showing daily LGR and air-mover runtime, an NOAA storm report pull for your specific date and zip code, an Xactimate estimate with separated emergency, dwelling, and contents scopes, and a final drying completion certificate. Your adjuster gets everything in one PDF packet — we have built it enough times that most Oakland County adjusters will approve on first review.
Storm damage at your Rochester Hills home? We’re dispatching now.
Tarp trucks staged, structural crews on call, and a live dispatcher on the line. Serving 48306, 48307, 48309 and every Rochester Hills subdivision from Meadowbrook to Avon Estates.
Call Now: (248) 531-8404