Wind damaged window latches

debodun said:
I am a person I'd like to think has average intelligence, but I am always baffled by home maintenance. I can't even tell if windows are locked or not!
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If you can raise the sash, the lock is open.
If you cannot raise the sash, it is locked (unless it has been painted over a lot).

If it was locked, it would not have blown inward. So I am guessing you do not lock your windows (which is bad from a security standpoint).
 
Since you can afford it, I would install all new windows. It doesnā€™t make sense to have your house, cold and drafty or pay a ton to heat the place.
 

debodun said:
I can't even tell if windows are locked or not!
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You aren't alone, when I lived in Nebraska I remember peering behind the latch while I turned it to try to figure out which way was closing vs opening.
I can't tell from your picture whether your window still has the receptacle portion of the lock, it won't really lock without that portion. Sometimes you have to mash the window down more to get the two parts of the latch to meet.

window lock.jpg

Sadly it looks like we are failing the next generation - the toddler toys don't have any comparable latch for them to learn about window latches (I wish I had a toy like this when I was little, all I had was pegs that could be hammered down):
toddler toy.jpg
 
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Paco Dennis said:
@debodun I looked at the wind gust map. The wind went from 20mph to 117mph in about an hour. Was there any destruction because of that enormous gust?
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Not to my knowledge - only my bedroom window and it wasn't really damaged, just blown in. You'd think I'd hear a wind gust that strong, but I didn't. Of course that reading was in Latham NY, about 20 miles away. Weather conditions can be different just a few miles from each other. Whatever it was here, it was strong enough and blowing at the right angle to pop out the window.
 
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