Anyone:

I have a question about covering windows and doors during these storms. Just how sealed up do you want the house to be?

I have friends in Orlando who had designed and made custom cut metal "shutters" for their house.

Yesterday was the first (and hopefully the last) time they had occasion to use them. These shutters are not permanet and are designed to put over the windows and French Doors by screwing them into the wood around the windows and glass doors.

My friend told me that during the highest part of the winds that the metal shutters would bow outward, and then relax, and force air back through the sealed doors. The draperies by those doors would billow out with the force.

Shouldn't there be some opening left when someone applies either wood or metal over windows and /or doors? I'm thinking that the objective is to simply protect the glass , not trying to seal off the opening.

Should air vents be put into the wood or metal coverings, or would this make them weaker?