Every storm of my childhood in Houston started the same way: somebody on the block up a ladder, putting a big X of masking tape across the front windows. I thought that was step one of hurricane prep. Turned out it’s the one thing every agency that studies storms wants you to stop doing.
As of mid-September 2026, this has been a quiet year. A strong El Niño is sitting on the Atlantic, and by late August the season had produced only three named storms, about half the recent average. But two of the three came ashore in Texas: Tropical Storm Arthur landed southwest of Galveston on June 17 and flooded streets across the region, and Bertha crossed near Port Arthur on July 23. The climatological peak was September 10, and most of the activity historically runs from mid-August to mid-October. So the tape is still coming out, and now is a decent time to talk about it.
What NOAA says, in its own words
NOAA’s tropical cyclone safety page: “Taping windows provides absolutely no protection. The idea that taping windows will prevent them from breaking when impacted by windborne debris is a myth.” It adds that taping “wastes valuable time which should be used to install shutters or plywood.”
Back in 2012, Bill Read, then director of the National Hurricane Center, told a hall of meteorologists and emergency managers in Orlando that breaking this myth was a goal of the agency. “It does not protect your windows. At best, it’s an inconvenience. At worst, some people have the illusion that they’re safe … and people can get severely hurt.” He said hurricane brochures were still recommending tape when he started in the 1970s, and dropped it in the 1980s. A survey that January had found nearly seven in ten homeowners still believed windows should be taped before a hurricane.
Why it’s worse than useless
The point that changed my mind came from the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, the group that runs the “Go Tapeless” campaign. Tape doesn’t stop the glass from breaking. It holds the broken pieces together, so instead of small fragments you get larger shards flying into the room. Its CEO has said this has caused injuries and, in documented cases, deaths…