What to Do After a Flood Hits Your Home
August 26, 2010
No one wants to think about what could happen if a flood hit their home. However, avoiding the subject can leave you vastly unprepared for dangerous eventualities that could become your reality if a natural disaster or other flood-triggering event affects your property. Thus, it is better to know exactly what to do in the event of a true emergency and how to recover from the effects that a disaster could have on your home. So, following are the key strategies and guidelines to follow after a flood in order to protect your own safety and repair as much damage as you can as quickly as possible.
If you have enough time to evacuate before a flood hits, don’t return to your home until it is declared to be safe by local officials. Before you return home, purchase a battery-powered flashlight and keep a battery-powered radio with you so that you can receive emergency updates as they become available. Once you arrive at your property, turn on the flashlight and any other electric tools you will be using before entering any building on your property. This is necessary to avoid the possibility of igniting any leaking gas with a possible spark. Also, before entering your home determine whether there is any odor of leaking gas and if there is any remaining floodwater surrounding the building.
There are physical and mental challenges associated with returning to a home damaged by a major flood as well as a number of serious physical hazards. Moving with caution once inside the home is paramount. There can be many unexpected and unforeseen hazards that have the potential to cause injury. It is a good idea to bring a sturdy long stick inside with you as well since you will need to poke around in debris to detect poisonous snakes and other wildlife that may be present due to the flood.
While inside the house, stay aware of the sights, smells and sounds that you experience. Either the odor of gas or the sound of a hissing of blowing may indicate a dangerous natural gas leak. For this reason, avoid lighting flames off any kind until you have verified that there are no flammable gases or materials present. These are only some of the many steps you will need to take to ensure that you will be able to stay safe during the flood recovery and rehabilitation process. The physical safety of you and your family are always to top priority.
Des Moines, Iowa Residents Forced to Deal with the Aftermath of Flooding
August 13, 2010
Some communities are accustomed to water rising more than they would like to see. It has flooded at Des Moines’ Country Estate Village before – many times in fact but residents there are saying that it has never been like this. Some residents in this mobile home community say they awoke to a foot of water inside their homes on Wednesday morning. Many found their cars submerged in water in the morning when they awoke and they all were being greeted by officials warning them to evacuate their homes and to seek shelter elsewhere. Even the record 1993 floods pale in comparison to this and residents are trying to come to terms with all that was lost. Emotions are running high in this community as they are elsewhere in central Iowa that is dealing with the aftermath of heavy flooding.
The Des Moines, Iowa area has been hammered with eight inches of rain since last Saturday. The heaviest rains fell overnight following daytime weather conditions that were very hot and humid. Residents throughout central Iowa are feeling very miserable as they are being forced to deal with horrible weather and flooding in their homes and businesses. On East 35th Street in Des Moines it looked like a lake between Ovid ad Hull Avenues with water completely submerging several homes there.
In nearby Ames, things are just as bad if not worse. This city of 55,000 which is just a half an hour’s car ride from Des Moines is without drinking water because a total of eight water mains broke due to the heavy flooding. Residents lined up for bottled water at sites throughout this college town on Thursday as city officials urged them to use as little water as possible until the water lines can be repaired and the system restored. Residents are being told that they can drink the water from their taps if they boil it first, but officials are imploring that they should limit such use because it will slow the repair efforts.
Since last Saturday, portions of central Iowa have been socked with about eight inches of rain. This week a series of hot, humid days were followed by nights consisting of fierce rains that pounded the state, including the greater Des Moines area. Record water levels on the Four Mile and Walnut Creek on the west side of the city forced evacuations in the surrounding neighborhoods. The city’s sewer network has been affected with about 450 reports of sewer backups into basements by Wednesday afternoon.
Are You Prepared for Hurricane Season?
August 10, 2010
During the past several years, the United States has endured the most extensive and severely damaging series of weather disasters in over a century. The many hurricanes that tore up and down the eastern coastline of the U.S. forced the evacuation of millions of people , left many without electricity and some without homes at all once the damage was done.
Now that hurricane season is upon us once again, anyone living in a hurricane-prone area must take the initiative to prepare for the storms. If you live in such an area, the first thing you must do is realize that your home could be in the direct path of a hurricane, which could do damage to your home and put your family in peril. It is therefore recommended that you put to follow the three steps of disaster preparedness: make a plan, put together a disaster kit and gather information.
Making a plan involves talking to your family and deciding where you will go if you are told to evacuate. You need to plan what to do with your family pets and plan a point wherein all of your family members will gather should you not all be in the same place when the evacuation is ordered. Regarding making a kit, you should have a disaster supply kit on hand which includes at least one flashlight with extra batteries, a transistor radio with batteries, medications, non-perishable food, first aide supplies and plenty of drinking water. It is also very important that you stay informed about the weather conditions by listening to local radio or television broadcasts.
You can prepare your home by installing storm windows or boarding them over with plywood if a storm is forecast to hit your area. You should also take the time to trim trees that are located near your house. Secure any outside water or gas tanks with heavy-duty straps and clear out your gutters and direct your downspouts out and away from the foundation of your home. It is also advisable to take important papers to a secure place and to move electronics and other vulnerable items in your home to the second story or off the premises completely in the case that floodwater enters your home.
Preparing yourself for the hurricane season is very important and something that cannot be emphasized enough. Just think back to Hurricane Katrina and recall how thousands upon thousands of residents were ill-prepared. Some were severely injured, others lost their pets, their houses and the most unfortunate lost their lives. Hurricanes are very powerful storms and something that we cannot control. Don’t let Mother Nature’s wrath get the best of you this hurricane season. Be prepared, be on alert and be safe.
Mold Remediation: The Professional Way
August 2, 2010
If you get hit by a serious leak or flood, when the water has been taken care of, its time to get down to the serious business of clean-up. The least obvious, yet one of the most potentially dangerous, is mold. These colonies can begin to grow within two or three days of the water receding, and if you have no experience of dealing with mold growth, then it’s time to call in the professionals. When these guys arrive and begin the mold removal process, it’s going to seem like a crime scene, with everyone dressed in Tyvek suits, deploying more air sniffers than Homeland Security and with a greater variety of equipment than a than most homeowners would initially assume.
This is not an over-reaction, black mold, or more properly, the Stachybotrys mold can produce poisonous compounds known as mycotoxins. These mycotoxins can certainly cause severe illness and even prove fatal. This mold is, as the name suggests black and has a slimy texture. Assuming you have brought in a certified mold removal contractor, then they will demonstrate the presence of the (Stachybotrys chartarum), ie: mold before remediation work is undertaken.
If your home has been damaged by flooding from a natural disaster, then any Sheetrock covered walls are likely to be completely ruined and the Sheetrock will need to be removed before the company can get on with the isolation and remediation of the mold. These guys will check out anywhere they think the mold will lurk, like your ventilation system and hard to access corners in the basement. they will also hang lots of plastic sheeting to minimize contamination once they begin to remove the mold. This may appear like overkill, but it is the airborne spores that are a danger to health, so when heat blowers and air filtration machines are used, the spores are contained.
According to CDC guidelines any soft furnishings and porous materials that cannot be completely dried and cleaned will have to be removed. Once this is done and all the sites of the infestation have been identified, the immediate task is to kill the mold. The contractor will use an approved fungicide for this, and working one sealed off area at a time, will remove the mold by various means, including stiff brushes, while at the same time scrub any spores from the air using air filtration machines fitted with HEPA filters. These ultra-fine filters will retain the spores and prevent them from simply being circulated through the machine.
