Roof Repair & Storm Damage Replacement in Cotton

Look, I’ve been replacing roofs in this part of south Georgia for over twenty years, and I can tell you without a doubt that Cotton is a magnet for hail damage. It’s not just bad luck—it’s the geography. We sit right in that corridor where warm, moist air from the Gulf slams into cooler fronts rolling down from the Appalachians. That collision doesn’t just give us pretty sunsets; it stacks up supercell thunderstorms like bowling balls. And because the terrain here is so flat and open, there’s nothing to break up those winds. A storm can roll in from the southwest, pick up speed across the peanut fields, and hit your roof with straight-line gusts that feel like a freight train. I’ve seen shingles peeled back like sardine cans on homes that were only five years old.

The timing is the sneaky part. Most folks think we only get severe weather in spring, but our real danger window stretches from March all the way through early July, with a second nasty spike in late fall. Those spring storms are the hail-makers—the updrafts are so violent that ice chunks get tossed up and frozen multiple times before they fall. We’re talking golf-ball to baseball-sized stones that hit your roof at a steep angle, and because the wind is usually blowing 40 to 60 miles per hour at that moment, the impact isn’t straight down. It’s sideways, which means it bruises the shingles, knocks the granules loose, and weakens the matting without you even seeing a single crack from the ground. Then, a month later, a routine summer thunderstorm with 50 mph gusts comes through and finishes the job, lifting those weakened tabs right off. By the time you notice a leak, the decking underneath is already waterlogged. That’s why I always tell homeowners here—if you hear hail, don’t wait for the insurance adjuster to find it. Call me first, because by the time you see the damage, the roof’s already lost its fight.