Caught this in the news. A family owned Supermarket in Miami Beach that got looted out of the usual items: Booze, smokes & Lottery tickets.
Using wood materials for hurricane boards is a wasteful investment in South Florida. By the time the next event comes around, your wood will more likely be eaten away by humidity and other factors. Metal panels can be expensive, but you pretty much can toss them in a corner of your property and forget about them till you need to use them.
But in this case, the covering in the video is not even worth the time used to install it as it is some thin (probably 1/8 inch) hardboard that it does not even look like it would protect a box of shoes much less debris sent flying around by a hurricane.
Looters are a fact of life in a post hurricane location. Metal hurricane shutters not only give better protection from Unwanted Flying Objects but will put up a bigger resistance against breaking in than flimsy paneling.
Some savings simply are not worth it and at least in Florida, your investment approved hurricane panels/shutters will somewhat be offset by the savings on the insurance as my lovely wife just reminded me. Depending on your coverage and type of protection, you will pay off your investment in ass little as a year.
And don’t forget that hurricane panels are the best way to make your home Zombie-Proof. Same for an out-opening metal door.
Why “out-opening”? To make it harder to kick in? But the drawback of out-opening house doors is that they can be blocked by debris.
During Wilma, I saw the door bow at the 100+ mph wind. Outward opening door is held by the whole frame hopefully well embedded in the house. Inward opening… well, you have seen how easy are to kick in.
Debris is a secondary worry.
If your code requires inward opening doors, you could reinforce them with crossbars, especially if you anchor the brackets in the wall studs, not the door frame. This would also be helpful if you have double front doors like the home where I grew up.