5 Thing to Do When Your Home is Flooded
When your home is flooded, not only can it be overwhelming, but downright devastating. Regardless of whether it’s caused by heavy rains, or a burst pipe, dealing with all of the aftermaths can be a lot to process.
Not only can we find ourselves struggling to know where to begin. However, swift action is critical to handle the flood effectively. Here are some of the most important things you should do right away when your home is flooded.
Determine Everyone’s Safety
The most important thing to do is to ensure that everyone in your family is safe. Despite how much you might want to address the flood’s impact on your personal belongings, your family’s well-being should be your top priority.
Go around your house and ensure that no one is under water or trapped under anything. You also want to ensure there is no risk of water touching electrical wires that could create a potential hazard.
Find a safe place to take refuge with your family, and remember, in the event of a flood, you should never wade through standing water without knowing how deep it is. Otherwise, you could find yourself in significant danger.
Turn off Electricity
If and when it’s safe to do so, it’s important that you turn off the electricity to prevent electrical shocks. Don’t touch any electrical appliances or switches whatsoever if you’re standing in water or even if you have wet hands. If you don’t know how to shut off your electricity, then find someone who does and do it as soon as possible.
Contact Your Insurance Company
If you have flood insurance, it’s important that you notify your insurance company as soon as possible so that you can start the claims process. You want to make sure that you document all of the damage from photos to videos and make a comprehensive list of everything that’s been damaged so you can provide the information to your insurer.
Remember to save any and all receipts from expenses related to the flood cleanup and restoration. Your insurance company may be able to reimburse you for some if not all of them.
Start Drying
It’s important that you start removing all of the water as soon as possible. Whether you use a wet dry vac or a bucket and mop, you want to make sure that you extract all the water as soon as possible.
Open your doors and windows to encourage air flow and help out the drying process. You may also want to use humidifiers or fans to reduce moisture and prevent mold. Whatever you do, you want to make sure that you act fast so that you can dry your home as soon as possible.
Throw Out Damaged Items
Unfortunately, a large portion of your belongings may not be salvageable even if they’re dried out. So, you’ll need to determine which objects need to be discarded due to water damage.
Start separating all of your salvageable items from the ones that will need to be thrown out and do your research to determine the best plan of action for disposing of everything.
