The hours after high wind are the easiest time to find out what a storm actually did, because the evidence is lying on the ground where it landed and has not yet been tidied away by anybody. Leave it a fortnight and the only remaining clue is a gap on a roof slope that nobody can date.
Start on the ground and work upwards, which is the opposite of what people do. Debris on the lawn and the path tells you where to look on the building, and it does so faster than scanning the whole roof hopefully with binoculars.
What landed, and where it came from
Pieces of mortar on a path usually mean a ridge or a verge has lost its bedding. Fragments of thin grey sheet are more often a cracked tile than anything structural. A short length of lead or a strip of felt means a flashing or a flat section has lifted, and that one wants attention the same week rather than the same season.
Note which side of the house the debris is on and which way the wind was blowing, then look at the elevation that was taking the weather. Damage is rarely spread evenly around a building.
The three urgent findings
A chimney stack that looks out of plumb, a ridge line that has developed a dip, and daylight visible through the roof from inside the loft are the three findings that justify a telephone call rather than a note in a book. All three mean something is holding less than it was.
Everything else on a domestic roof is a leak waiting to happen rather than a collapse waiting to happen, and leaks can be dealt with in dry weather by somebody with proper access.
Fences, gates and boundaries
Wind finds the weakest post, so a fence that came down in a gale was already failing at ground level and the storm merely finished it. Before buying panels, push every remaining post hard and find out how many of them are in the same condition as the one that went.
Gates take the worst of it because they are a solid sail on a single post. A gate that now drags or will not latch has usually pulled its post out of plumb rather than sagged on its hinges.
Water, in the following days
Storms block drainage as much as they break things. A downpipe outlet that has taken a clump of moss off the roof will be completely stopped, and the first you know of it is water running down a wall in the next heavy shower rather than during the storm itself.
Lift the grating on any channel or gully and clear what blew in. This is ten minutes of work that prevents the slow, hidden sort of damage that costs real money.
What not to do that week
Do not go up a ladder while it is still gusting, and do not accept an offer from somebody who knocks on the door with a ladder already on the van. Storm weeks bring people round who are very keen to find a problem, and the pressure to decide quickly is the point of the visit rather than an accident of it.
Photograph everything before any repair happens. Pictures taken the morning after are worth a great deal later, whether the conversation is with a roofer or anybody else.