Need help with my back yard awning

[Moirae]

So we are getting pelted with the remains of Hurricane Patricia at the moment even though I live in Louisiana not Mexico or Texas. The storm isn't horrible or anything, more like a bit of a bad rain and thunderstorm that's been going on since 2 pm.

About two hours ago we started hearing a kind of light banging noise and looked outside. Now that the rain has died down a bit, we went out and looked.

Think of it like an 8 section by 8 section wooden grid with a metal roof on top. It's absolutely gorgeous and was here when we bought the house in March. This is the first time we've had a problem with it in spite of the many powerful thunderstorms we've had since then. This is the tropics after all, and summer can be very bad. We are right at the end of hurricane season.

The problem is that one of the beams in one section of the 8x8 grid seems to have fractured with the next one parallell but closest to it looking like it's going to fracture. What this means is that the wood and metal awning are no longer attached in these sections so the metal is free. It's not too bad now but this is going to get worse as time goes by.

Here's the problem... I'd love to just buy a whole new wooden piece and completely replace it (which we know is the best thing to do) but we don't have the money for that right now as it could be quite expensive and I'm still not working in spite of dozens of interviews. Mostly I'm worried about the damage this metal piece could cause if it's torn free and swings toward the house but the metal is so large that we can't just rip it off because they aren't 8 sections of metal, it's one whole piece and only a fraction of a corner of it is loose.

Is there a way to fix this that won't cost us an arm and a leg as a temporary fix?

Thanks.

[Seshat]

For the fractured sections, get some sort of reinforcement. If there's a secondhand building supplies place near you, look for some rebar (the steel stuff they use for the 'reinforced' part of 'reinforced concrete') or some external-suitable wood of the same general sort as the awning.
You can attach the reinforcement with nails, u-brackets (if you use rebar), or anything else that you can later remove. But you need to reinforce the cracked parts with something or the damage might expand. (Basically, each part is designed to support its share of the weight, but now it's supporting its share + the share of the broken part beside it....)

The metal part - examine how it's supposed to be attached. Many of these are simply attached with roofing nails or roofing screws into the frame. If it's flapping free, it's probably broken away from its roofing nail because the frame bent.
So straighten the frame (as part of the reinforcement), then find a place near the break in the metal part where you can drive a new roofing nail through. There's also probably a kind of tape (look in the 'duct tape/gaffer tape/all sorts of specialty tapes' area) you can use to be a temporary patch on the break itself.

[Moirae]

Thanks Seshat. Much appreciated.

[TheSHAD0W]

I'm not sure what lumber they used in the beams, probably 2x6" or 2x8". I'd recommend purchasing pieces of the same dimension lumber, then screwing pieces across the broken sections to reinforce them; then putting screws down through the roof into them. You'll need the appropriate types of screws, probably 2-1/2" outdoor screws to attach the boards and sheet metal screws to tie down the roofing.