If you live in a hurricane zone, then you've no doubt read up on the best ways to protect your home from megastorms [1]. While most hurricane preparations focus on fortifying the exterior of your home, there's actually something important you should be doing inside: closing all interior doors.

After conducting scientific wind tests, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety [2] concluded that when high wind enters the home during a storm (as it could through an open or broken window), it creates strong upward pressure on the roof. If this pressure grows strong enough, it can eventually cause the roof to blow apart, allowing rain to come in and leaving the home exposed to the elements. In short, causing catastrophic damage.

"Closing interior doors helps compartmentalize the pressure inside the home into smaller areas reducing the overall force on the roof structure, which gives the roof a better chance of staying intact," the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety explains on its website [3].