Hurricane shutters

In our Florida HOA, several homeowners put up hurricane shutters and leave for the summer. In checking with the towns fire department, they do not like the idea because if they have to fight a fire, they could get trapped. Has any HOA's solved this problem thru the Covenants or R&R's?

There is no city ordiance on hurricane shutters. The fire department thinks that the shutters should be put up three days in advance of a hurricane and then taken down. looking for other Florida HOA's that might have a solution.

Charles,

We added Hurricane shutter removal and installation into our R. & R's because this became a major issue after Jeannie and Francis hit us head on, only 3 weeks apart. Our homes are designed with huge glass sliding windows and the steel panels are tremendously heavy. So they went up 2 days before Francis, came down 3 days after and would you ever think, 2 weeks later, up they went again. I am strong and can barely carry 1 single panel which is 96 inches tall so imagine smaller people with no one to help them.

Because Florida is full of seasonal/ part time owners, many install the shutters prior to leaving for the summers. It is extremely difficult to find someone who will put shutters up on very short notice while an owner is absent so to get a contract for an installer is almost impossible.

The State says that HOA's may not ban them from being used but it is up to the HOA's to have the guidelines and time frames. So we wrote that shutters MAY be left up on 2 conditions.
#1, That the entire front of the house may NOT be included in a seasonal use of the shutters. May 30th thru Oct 30th are the dates allowed for shutters to be installed.
#2. Any shutters that will remain up as seasonal installations must be either clear vinyl or plastic or if a metal material, they must be a color to match the window casing, usually shades of white or beige in our case.

This is not a perfect solution but it seemed to work fairly well and consoled the many full time residents who had to look at all of the ugly stell window coverings.

As to the Fire Dept what they do not understand is this a house explodeing due to a window being blown in is far more likely to happen then a Fire. We allow snow birds to close off the windows and entrance but request a copy of the key so that people do not have to fly to south florida from Goose bay Labrador to close a window that is rattleing. A hoa in miami 12 miles south of us has snow birds and used the rule donna spoke of they lost 112 homes in Hurricane Andrew that hoa now has 12 homes left in it guess what the panels were up on the 12 in south florida we are very aware of canes are a comin and snity overrides fire depts besides which homes in miamidade building code demand concrete-cinder block design the chances of fighting a fire are slim too boot fire dept folks have kelly tools that take 5 minutes to destroy a panel made of anything. I am a ex vol fire dept capt so that statement is bogus IMHO