Iowa Flood Victim? Get the Clean-up Efforts Underway ASAP!
August 23, 2010
If your Iowa home has been damaged by a flood, you are certainly feeling the stress and heartbreak of discovering standing water inside your house. Even though things seem hopeless now, rest assured that you can get your home back in order in as little as 24 to 48 hours following the flood.
It is always best to call in an Iowa flood damage cleanup team to get the job done quickly. If you have flood insurance then the bill will be taken care of. If you are not insured, you can do some of the work yourself in order to save on costs.
The first thing that must be done is to get that water out of your house ASAP. The longer you allow dirty, standing water to remain inside, the more damage will be done, which will push your clean-up costs through the roof. You can rent a sump pump and start the process yourself. If you have hired a company to come and clean up for you, it still would be fine to start the pumping out process yourself because you are literally fighting the clock when it comes to cleaning up flood water. Mold can begin to grow in as little as one day and once mold takes a hold and begins to spread, you are guaranteed to have major problems down the road. Some molds are so dangerous in fact that you may end up having to move out of your home while the mold is being dealt with.
You can also begin to remove water damaged items from your home. While you probably cannot tear up wet carpeting yourself, you surely can remove wet clothing, electronics, furniture, curtains and personal paperwork. Take everything outside so that it can begin to dry and so that you an inspect your items to see if they are worth saving. Quite often clothing and curtains can indeed be saved if washed in hot water and detergent. Stuffed furniture, mattresses and pillows cannot normally be saved simply because you cannot get them dried very quickly. Mold and mildew can begin to grow inside these items, making the dangerous to keep.
Once the experts arrive, they will first go around your home and make an assessment regarding the level of damage. They will take special care to see if water has penetrated inside walls, under flooring and in hard-to-reach areas like the backs of closets and in small crawl spaces. They will then begin to clean the affected area using sophisticated machinery and industrial strength chemicals. Large blowers and dehumidifiers will also be moved in to get the moisture out of the air. If drywall and insulation has been soaked with dirty flood water, it will be removed and discarded.
Des Moines Residents Forced to Evacuate After Flooding
August 13, 2010
Nearly 300 residences on Des Moines’ east side were forced to evacute Wednesday after the Four Mile Creek overflowed its banks after yet another night of heavy rains. Many of the residences in the Four Mile area have suffered significant damage as gas and water meters were put out of service forcing the shut down of gas and electricity to some areas. Dozens of the displaced people were forced to check into emergency shelters located throughout the area.
In the Country Estates Village mobile home community, several residents were forced to leave when the water had reached their top porch step and many residents there had said that they have never lived through anything like this even after being in the area for up to forty years.
The greater Des Moines area has been drenched with around eight inches of rain since last weekend. This week, hot and humid weather during the day has been followed by nights that brought pounding rains all across the central part of the state. The relentless rain has caused the Four Mile Creek and Walnut Creek to produce record water levels on the west side of Des Moines, leading to officials asking nearby residents to evacuate. The sewer system in the city is also backing up into many basements in the city with the south and east sides seeing the worst of it.
Residents who have storm water backing up into their basements are being warned by the local health department that the water is most likely contaminated and to use extreme caution. Police patrol units are being deployed to those neighborhoods that have been evacuated to guard against burglaries and break-ins. Rescue workers were busy Wednesday seeing to it that everyone who needed to be taken to dry land got a lift on a boat.
In Ames, flooding caused a water main to burst, which forced the city to shut off water to its population of 55,000. The Iowa State University basketball arena was submerged in five feet of dirty flood water and it is unknown when the facility will be open again as cleanup efforts and a full evaluation must be done to assess the degree of damage sustained. The National Weather Service has put a flash flood watch into effect for parts of Iowa from Thursday through Friday night. New storms moving into the area could result in three more inches falling in the already heavily saturated regions of the state.
