Does taping your windows in a storm actually help?
Every storm season, the same advice makes the rounds: tape a big X across your windows so they don’t shatter. It feels responsible, it looks decisive, and it’s forwarded to every family group chat within the hour. It’s also mostly wrong — a rare case where a popular safety tip can make things slightly worse. I find debunking these oddly satisfying, so let’s do this one.
In the daylight layer I’m a cofounder of Wistkey, and outside the AI talk I have a soft spot for the small, sticky myths that survive because they feel true. This is a perfect specimen.
What the tape actually does
The hope is that tape holds the glass together. It doesn’t meaningfully strengthen the window — a strong gust or flying debris breaks a taped pane about as easily as a bare one. What the tape changes is how it breaks, and not for the better.
Tape doesn't stop the window breaking. It just turns a lot of small shards into a few big dangerous ones.
Emergency agencies have warned about this for years: taped glass tends to break into larger, heavier shards that fly further, instead of crumbling into smaller pieces. So the tape can trade a manageable mess for more dangerous projectiles — the opposite of the goal.
Why the myth won't die
- It gives you something to do. Waiting out a storm feels helpless; taping is an action, and action soothes anxiety even when it doesn’t work.
- It looks like preparation. Rows of X-ed windows signal “we’re ready,” and that image spreads.
- Nobody runs the test. If your window survives, you thank the tape; if it breaks, you blame the storm. The belief never gets checked.
What actually helps
- Proper shutters or storm-rated coverings — the real protection, if you’re in a storm-prone area.
- Stay away from windows during the worst of it, and put a closed interior door between you and the glass.
- Clear the yard of loose objects that become projectiles — far more useful than any amount of tape.
- Follow local emergency guidance, which is specific to your actual risk.
The broader lesson is one I keep bumping into: the urge to do something is powerful, and it will happily attach itself to a ritual that doesn’t work while feeling exactly like competence. Whenever a tip is popular but nobody can say why it works, that’s the moment to check — before you spend a stressful hour making careful X’s that were never going to help.
