What does the state's rain record mean for a Midwest City house?
Oklahoma had its wettest month on record in May 2015. The state climatologist put the statewide average at 14.41 inches for the month, 9.59 inches above normal, a figure carried by regional news reports. A month that wet tests roofs, gutters, floors and the drains that carry water away from a house, and it leaves a building wet for longer than a single storm would. Houses are judged less by how they look after such a rain than by what the readings show inside the walls.
The same month brought the National Weather Service's Flash Flood Emergency on May 6, 2015, for the south Oklahoma City metro. Midwest City lies east of the city, and this page does not say which streets were affected. What it can say is that a wet month of that size stresses the same parts of any house in the area: the edge of the foundation, the roof and the drains. Checking those parts first is the sensible order of work.
How does storm water get into a house after it reaches the yard?
Once storm water reaches the yard it has a few ways in: under a door sill, through a window well, along the outside of a foundation wall or across a garage slab. The water then runs along the lowest surface it can reach, so the first room it touches is often the garage, the laundry or the room nearest the door. Those are the rooms the technician reads first.
Extraction starts in that low room. The technician removes the standing water, reads the floor and the wall at the threshold, and checks the cavities that run from the floor up toward the top plate. A house that was wet at the bottom may be wet higher up than it looks, so the readings go as high as the water can have reached. For the extraction stage, see emergency water extraction.
What should you do before the crew arrives?
Switch off the power to rooms with standing water if you can do it from a dry place, move valuables up off the floor and put a container under any drip. Take photographs of the water line and of the damaged items before anything is moved. Keep the receipts for any pump or cleaning you pay for directly, since the insurer will ask for them.
Do not wade into water to reach a breaker, and do not run a household wet vacuum near outlets. Write down when you found the water, and tell the call-taker where it is coming from and whether it is still rising. Those notes shorten the first visit and make the record stronger.
How is the work checked and paid for?
Ask for the scope in writing before the work starts, including what will be removed and what will be dried in place. The price is explained and approved on site, and this site publishes no figure for it. Ask which licences, registrations and permits apply to the job, and check the written contract before you sign.
Keep the readings, the photographs and the removal list for any insurance claim. The Oklahoma Insurance Department is the state regulator for insurance claims. The policy decides what is covered, and a complete record makes that decision easier to reach.
