Water's dripping through your ceiling at 2 AM. The wind's still howling outside. You don't know if there's a hole in the roof, a failed flashing, or a branch you can't see. Here's what to actually do in the first ten minutes, then what a roofer does once they show up.
## First ten minutes: contain, document, move stuff
Before you call anyone, handle what's in front of you.
Get a bucket or a storage bin under the drip. If the ceiling is bulging, that means water is pooling above the drywall and about to come down all at once. Grab a screwdriver and poke a small hole at the lowest point of the bulge to let it drain into the bucket in a controlled way. Sounds wrong, but it's way better than having ten pounds of water rip a section of ceiling open and land on your couch.
Move electronics, furniture, and rugs away from the wet zone. Lay down towels. If the water is running down an interior wall, kill the power to that circuit at the breaker. Wet drywall plus live outlets is a real hazard.
Take photos. A lot of them. Time-stamped shots of where the water is coming in, how much damage is visible, and what rooms are affected. This matters for your insurance claim later.
Don't go up on the roof. We can't stress this enough. A wet roof at night in a Seattle storm is the single most dangerous thing you could climb on. Every winter we hear about homeowners who fell trying to hang their own tarp. Wait for the crew.
## When to call a roofer at 2 AM vs wait till morning
Not every leak is a same-night call. Here's the line we use.
Call now if: water is actively running into the house and you can't stop it with buckets, a tree or large limb is on the roof, you can see open sky from inside the attic, shingles are gone and the deck is exposed to rain, or water is coming in near electrical panels or fixtures.
Wait until morning if: there's a small drip in one spot and you've got it contained, the storm has already passed, or the damage looks cosmetic (missing a few shingles but no visible water intrusion). Morning calls are cheaper, safer for the crew, and easier for insurance to schedule around.
If you're on the fence, call anyway. We'd rather talk you down from a non-emergency at 11 PM than have you wake up to a destroyed living room ceiling.
## What a roofer actually does at 2 AM
Once we're on-site for an emergency roof repair, the goal isn't to fix the roof permanently. It's to stop the damage from getting worse until we can come back in daylight and fix it right.
Here's what usually happens. We walk the perimeter with flashlights to figure out where the water's getting in. If it's wind-driven, we might find lifted shingles on the slope facing the storm. If it's a branch strike, there'll be an obvious puncture. We tarp the damaged section, securing the tarp with furring strips nailed into unaffected shingles (the tarp comes off easy later). If there's a hole in the deck, we board it up from inside the attic when we can get access, otherwise we wrap it from the top. If water has been running into the attic, we set up containment and sometimes run a shop vac for standing water.
Then we document everything with photos. This is the part homeowners sometimes forget to ask for, but it matters a lot. Insurance adjusters want to see the condition of the roof before anyone touches it, and they want to see the emergency mitigation steps you took. Our insurance restoration process walks through that documentation end to end, so if you're filing a claim, nothing falls through the cracks.
The whole emergency visit usually takes 60 to 90 minutes. Then we schedule the permanent repair for the next reasonable weather window.
## What emergency tarping actually costs in Seattle
Real numbers, not ranges pulled from a national average site. Most emergency tarp jobs in the Seattle metro run $400 to $900. The low end is a small tarp on a single-story home with easy access, maybe a couple of lifted shingles from a windstorm. The high end is a larger tarp on a steep or two-story roof, or a job requiring board-up over a puncture.
Late-night calls (between roughly 10 PM and 6 AM) typically carry a small premium, usually $100 to $200 on top of the base tarp cost. We don't hide that or spring it on you. You'll know when you call.
If we come back and do the permanent fix, we usually credit the tarp cost toward the roof repair invoice. Most reputable roofers in the area do the same.
## Why not every leak needs a 2 AM response
Here's a thing people don't always realize: a tarp isn't always safer than a bucket. If the wind's still blowing 40 mph and it's pitch dark, sending a crew up a wet roof can create worse problems than waiting five hours until daylight. We've had calls where we told the homeowner to keep the bucket going, took photos over the phone, and scheduled a crew for 7 AM. Everyone was safer, the cost was lower, and the damage didn't get noticeably worse in five hours.
The judgment call is active damage versus stable damage. Active means water is actively getting worse or structure is at risk. Stable means there's a problem, but it's contained and not spreading. We'll ask you questions on the phone to figure out which one you've got.
## Stuff we've actually seen in Seattle
A few real calls from the last couple of storm seasons.
A 90-foot fir came down across a Queen Anne craftsman in a November windstorm. Went straight through the roof and into a second-floor bedroom. Thankfully nobody was in the room. We tarped the opening at 1 AM, boarded up the attic penetration, and coordinated with the tree service to lift the trunk off before the permanent repair. Full insurance claim, full rebuild of that corner.
A West Seattle rambler lost about 40 shingles off the windward slope during a January blow. Deck was exposed and it was pouring. We got there at 4 AM, covered the whole slope in tarp and furring strips, and came back three days later when the weather broke to do the shingle replacement.
A Ballard craftsman had water pouring down an interior wall from a failed chimney flashing. Storm had been hammering the chimney side for hours. Not a dramatic break, just a slow flashing failure under sustained wind-driven rain. We patched the flashing gap with roofing cement and a temporary membrane at midnight, came back the following week and rebuilt the flashing properly.
If you want to understand why storms keep causing these kinds of problems here, we broke down windstorm roof damage patterns in the PNW and how to prep your roof for fall rain season in more depth.
## If you need to call right now
Have a few things ready when you pick up the phone.
Your address. What's happening in plain language ("water coming through the ceiling in the dining room" is more useful than "I think I have a leak"). Your roof material if you know it (asphalt shingle, cedar shake, metal, tile). When the problem started. Whether anything is actively getting worse.
We serve every neighborhood in Seattle and the surrounding metro, and we answer the phone 24/7. If you've got an active emergency right now, contact us here or call the number at the top of the page. Someone will pick up.
