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With the buckets of rain and bank-busting rivers we’ve had in the Northeast starting with Hurricane Irene last week, lots of us are dealing with major flooding problems.
Cleaning up and getting your house back together after a flood can be overwhelming. Some of it you can do on your own, and sometimes, well, you might need a pro. With that in mind I thought I’d re-post an interview I did back on May 15, 2010 following the massive flooding in Nashville.
For those of you dealing with your own mess, or want to learn how to prepare for an impending one, I hope this helps.
This post is especially for our friends in Nashville and the rest of flooded Tennessee. I know most of you are well under way with your clean up, but floods are a regularly-occurring phenomenon and you never know when you’re going to get swamped. With that in mind I contacted Scott Mims, who owns a ServiceMaster Clean franchise in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama, and he too has been busy over in Tennessee with flood relief.
I asked Mims for some helpful tips for cleaning up your own home or business in the wake of flood. He’s legit. Not only does his franchise specialize in water and fire damage restoration and mold remediation, but he also the Restoration Division Chair and Vice-Chair of the Certification Council for the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC). Mims is a Master Water Restorer, Master Fire & Smoke Restorer, and Master Textile Cleaner.
John Galvin: Okay, Scott, brace us for the worst. Let’s say we had to evacuate, and our home was flooded, what’s it going to look like when we get back in there?
Scott Mims: Expect to see your belongings in different places than where you left them. Large items such as couches and beds can be turned about and rearranged by the floodwaters. Some belongings may be carried off all together. There will also be a potential for silt and debris that will look very similar to mud throughout your home. The smell will be very unpleasant, as the river water will mix with sewage and other potentially harmful substances. There will be a visible water line as well as discoloration of the walls and belongings.
JG: Give us a realistic scenario. If your house has been flooded, what’s the first thing you should do to start clean up?
SM: The first thing you should do is to provide for your own safety and the safety of those that may enter the structure. You want to ensure the structure is safe to enter. Once in the structure before beginning any cleanup you should document the conditions via photographs and/or video then start the mitigation process immediately. Once safety issues and documentation are addressed here are some additional tips:
Be cautious of electrical shock hazards
Ventilate the structure as this can help to reduce the amplification of microorganisms.
Use appropriate personal protective equipment including but not limited to, boots with hardened shank, eye protection, hard hat, respiratory protection, gloves, water proof clothing or Tyvek suits to protect yourself from exposure to microorganisms.
JG: Okay. Now that we know it’s safe to at least go inside, what’s next? Even if we wanted to call in the pros I would imagine the odds are that you’re going to be overwhelmed with calls and not able to respond to everybody right away, so what’s the first thing we should tackle? And what are the tools we’ll need?
SM: Let me first start by saying there are many organizations that send crews to a disaster such as flooding. I am a ServiceMaster Clean franchise owner and being a part of the largest restoration franchise in the US we are able to mobilize multiple crews from all over the country to work with the local franchises in assisting those in their time of need. Help is not hard to find.
It is highly recommended that you use a restoration professional but if you are unable to afford one or want to get the restoration efforts underway here are some helpful tips.
Remove debris with shovels and rakes making sure to clean the tools thoroughly with proper detergents after use.
Remove any wet drywall or insulation as well as wet finished flooring materials and other porous building components that have been saturated with flood water such as doors, baseboard, hardwood flooring, etc… Your goal is to expose any potential pockets of saturation down to materials that can be properly cleaned and salvaged. It is very likely that you will only have exposed studs and subfloor left. When removing drywall make sure to remove the drywall up to 24” past the known wet line to account for potential wicking of the water. This can be accomplished with pry bars, shovels, pickaxe and many other tools.
Once fresh water is restored to the home or business you will want to clean the affected materials. Start by using a household cleaning agent mixed according to label directions and spray it liberally on the affected surfaces. Allow it to dwell. Agitation may be needed to loosen debris and soil. Then wash with a water hose or pressure washer to remove soils. A pressure washer is recommended to loosen debris and give a better overall cleaning.
Mop up or extract any excess water
Repeat as needed.
Once clean you may apply a disinfectant such as a 6% solution of household chlorine bleach mixed 1 part bleach to 11 parts water may be used on durable, colorfast surfaces. Never mix chlorine bleach with ammonia or strong acids. An alternative to chlorine bleach may be a 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide. You will want to agitate and work this in with a brush to make sure it penetrates cracks and crevices. Professional restorers have specific products for this purpose rather than using the aforementioned products.
The next step is to dry the structure using high velocity air movers if possible. It is highly recommended that you contact a qualified restoration professional for assistance. Replacing building materials before the structure is properly dried could result in microbial growth and subsequent damage.
JG: How long before the mold sets in? And if mold is already in place is there anything that can be done except for calling in a pro?
SM: There are 5 conditions for mold growth:
Organic food source (wood, paper, etc…)
Moisture (even high humidity above 60% Relative Humidity)
Temperatures between 68 F – 86 F result in most prolific growth
Stagnant Air
Time (several hours to several days)
You would try to alter these conditions to avoid mold growth. The most affective method to limit mold growth is to act fast. It is highly recommended that a qualified professional be contacted and ANSI IICRC S520 standard for Mold Remediation be followed.
JG: What else is in that muck that you always see in storm-flooded homes? Motor oil? Ethylene glycol? What else?
SM: Rising water from floods can carry many harmful substances such as sewage and other harmful microorganisms. Your best bet is to assume all water and debris to be potentially infectious and treat it as such making sure to protect yourself using appropriate personal protective equipment.
Spread the word. In Houston on June 4, Popular Mechanics is presenting the Ram Home Safety Prep Show at the Reliant Center from 9:30am to 5:30pm.
I’m the creator and executive producer of the show and we’ve got an incredible lineup of speakers including Cody Lundin, star of Dual Survival, and author of When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes.
Plus, disaster pros, experts, and editors of Popular Mechanics will demonstrate how to survive any emergency.
Also featuring the U.S. Coast Guard, reporters from the Houston Chronicle, a hurricane forecast from ImpactWeather’s senior hurricane forecaster, disaster experts from the Red Cross and more!
Ram Trucks will be on site too with a lineup of trucks that ticket holders can drive and test on site.
To see the full lineup, and to sign up for early discount coupons that will give you a $5 entry click here.
The State of New York has recently come out with it’s Public Health Legal Manual. Sounds bland enough, but it’s a legal guide to what the government can legally do in the event of your worst disaster nightmare. As the New York Times put it in a story just posted on their website:
“Quarantines. The closing of businesses. Mass evacuations, warrantless searches of homes. The slaughter of infected animals and the seizing of property. When laws can be suspended and whether infectious people can be isolated against their will or subjected to mandatory treatment. It is all there, in dry legalese, in the manual, published by the state court system and the state bar association.”
Sound scary? Well, yes, but let’s not forget that New York has already lived through the attacks of September 11, and far from locking the city down, and quarantining parts of the population, most New Yorkers were told to go shopping.
The day after a massive snowstorm covered nearly two-thirds of the nation, the skies cleared over the Midwestern United States, revealing the impact of the storm. On February 2, 2011, snow covered the ground in a solid swath from eastern Arizona to the fringe of the storm in Indiana and Michigan. Eastern states were still swathed in clouds.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite took these composite images during three separate overpasses on February 2. The top image shows the United States in photo-like true color. The lower image was made with both visible light and infrared light to distinguish between clouds and snow. Snow is turquoise, while clouds are white and pale blue. The exception is a turquoise streak of icy clouds over Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina.
The storm that deposited the snow on February 1 tracked northeast from New Mexico to Maine. This means that the snow in the northwest (Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming) is probably not related to the storm. The giant storm left at least five inches of snow in 21 states and brought freezing rain and wind to more states.
From Santa Fe, down to El Paso, and clear across to Maine people are bracing for the storm.
The biggest threat, however, isn’t the snow, it’s the ice storm that will come as a result of super-cold, below-freezing temps rushing in from the North that will collide with a lot of wetness pushing up from the South.
The World’s political and business leaders (and usually, er, Bono) are gathering in Davos, Switzerland, this week for the always controversial World Economic Forum. Since 1995 the WEF has been publishing their Global Risks report–a survey, in essence, of the catastrophic trouble that looms on the horizon.
What’s weighing on the powers that be? Another global fiscal crisis still has everyone on pins and needles. Can the world handle another mega-bailout, and even if it can handle it economically, will the people at large stand for it?
Corrupt states, corrupt politicians, and organized crime make up the second big grouping of risk which the report calls “the illegal economy nexus.” When you put it like that it doesn’t actually sound so bad, but there was an estimated $1.3 trillion in this type of illegal business last year.
The third mega-threat is, no surprise, the increased competition for limited resources, namely water, energy, and food. This won’t come to any surprise to anybody who’s heard stories of the price of cabbage skyrocketing in Korea, or the price of onions doing the same in India. For a middle-income American family, even a doubling in the cost of onions is something that many might not even notice. In lower-income developing nations, the quadrupling of a staple food can bankrupt a family.
Throw in garden variety threats like cyber security, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism (which is just a middling sort of threat in the WEF eyes), and there’s a lot to be vigilant of.
The New York Times is working the disaster beat hard this week. Today, in the wake of the deadly flooding in Brazil which has killed over 600 people and left over 14,000 homeless, Times reporter Alexei Barrionuevo is reporting from Sao Paolo on plans to try and prepare for future floods instead of simply react to the disasters. Barrioneuvo reports:
“Brazil has experienced 37 disastrous floods since 2000, said Debarati Guha Sapir, a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels who heads a World Health Organizationcollaborating center on disasters. Seven occurred in 2009 and four in 2008. The rain-related disasters have affected nearly five million people over the last two decades, she said.
More than 280 people died in Rio State in flooding and landslides last year, and at least 75 more in São Paulo State. That followed the more than 130 who died during heavy rains in Santa Catarina State in 2008.
But disaster experts say that the stark difference in the death tolls in Brazil and Australia, where at least 28 people have died in flooding in the northeast in the past two weeks, reveal a wide gap in the preparedness of the countries and their flood management policies.”
The New York Times reported yesterday about a recent USGS conference that hypothesized about the occurence of super storm that could dump as much as 10 feet of rain on the sunshine state. From the NYT:
“Yet vast floods have also been documented, both through tree-ring data and more modern historical records. Marcia K. McNutt, the director of the geological survey, said that 150 years ago, over a few weeks in the winter of 1861-62, enough rain fell to inundate a stretch of the Central Valley 300 miles long and 20 miles wide, from north of Sacramento south to Bakersfield, near the eastern desert.
“The storms lasted 45 days, creating lakes in parts of the Mojave Desert and, according to a survey account, “turning the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, forcing the state capital to be moved from Sacramento to San Francisco for a time, and requiring Gov. Leland Stanford to take a rowboat to his inauguration.”
While Queensland has been hammered by their rainier-than-usual rain season, Brazil is also in the midst of its rainy season, and it’s deadly as usual due to the fact that Brazil’s poor live in rustic shacks on the sides of mountains.
So far over 350 people have died since 10 inches of rain fell in the region surrounding Rio in a 24-hour period.
It’s just about dawn (2:06pm EST) in Brisbane and the central part of the city is reportedly a ghost town. The local electric company has cut power to the downtown business district, affecting roughly 100,00o residents. At least 10 people have been killed, and according to Australia’s ABC News, another 78 are missing. Grocery store shelves have been stripped bare.
Make sure you watch all five minutes to get the full impact, and marvel at the folly of the guy who actually saved his vehicle. He almost won himself an Einstein Award.
Thank you, brothers! Robert Fritz Thanks his rescuers. (Silver City Sun-News)
It can happen to the best hikers. Robert Fritz, the 50-year-old from El Paso, Texas, who was rescued yesterday along with his son in the remote Gila wilderness of southern New Mexico, says he’s been hiking in the back country for nearly three decades–and he’s never had anything like this happen.
The two were on a multi-day backpacking trip when a blizzard dumped several inches of snow on their tent and socked them. Fritz’s son, Austin, became ill, and the father wisely didn’t try and hike out. The two had been missing for nine days. Yesterday, Fritz managed to wave down a search-and-rescue helicopter and today the two are back in El Paso no worse for wear.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that the swollen Fitzroy River, which has nearly sealed off the town of Rockhampton, is set to peak tomorrow (today in Australia). The bad news is that this is the beginning of Australia’s rainy season, and this year could be worse that most because of a strong La Nina weather pattern that typically brings a wet summer and fall to Australia.
Read more about La Nina at NOAA’s La Nina page, but the gist of what you need to know is that El Nino means warmer-than-normal water temperatures, and La Nina means cooler-than-normal water temperatures.
In the U.S. a La Nina weather patter typically means a dry winter in California, a wet winter in the Pacific Northwest and in the interior south, and cold temps in the Northeast. See NOAA’s chart here.
If you want to learn about La Nina’s impact on Australia, that Aussie Bureau of Meteorology has your answers here.
Grant County Search and Rescue Chopper on the Scene
The Silver City Sun-News is reporting that 55-year-old Robert Fritz, and his 15-year-old son, both from El Paso, TX, have been found alive after having gone missing since last Sunday, December 26, 2010.
Fritz is apparently an accomplished hiker but the area was hit by a major blizzard that dumped several inches of snow on Thursday, December 30.
“They are cold but they are both conscious, both able to move on their own and they got a helicopter ride out of the wilderness,” incident commander Bob Rogers to the Silver City newspaper.
Some 200,000 Australians were adversely affected by Queensland floods by the end of December 2010, according to The New York Times. High waters had washed out roads, isolated entire towns, and forced thousands to evacuate. The coastal city of Rockhampton braced for major flooding expected to arrive on New Year’s Day 2011. The flooding began a week earlier with the arrival of Tropical Storm Tasha.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these false-color images on December 31, 2010 (top), and December 28, 2009 (bottom). Both images use a combination of infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land. Water ranges from electric blue to navy. Clouds range from off-white to bright blue-green. Vegetation is bright green. Bare ground appears in shades of brick red and pinkish brown.
Compared to the image acquired a year earlier, the rivers between the coastal city of Rockhampton and the inland city of Emerald are all swollen. Water has not only filled frequently dry river valleys, but also pushed over riverbanks in some places.
Queensland’s Fitzroy river isn’t expected to crest at 30 feet (9.4 meters) until tomorrow and much of suburban town of Rockhampton (roughly 800 miles north of Sydney) is already underwater. To make matters worse, rain is forecast for the week ahead. The military has begun flying in supplies but major damage has been done to the the regions agriculture and energy (coal) industries.
For those in Australia dealing with the effects of flooding on your home, I posted a detailed Q&A last year after severe flooding in Nashville, Tennessee, destroyed many homes. For the story I interviewed Scott Mims who owns a Service Master franchise and is an expert on post-flood cleaning and restoring.
