What have Norman's storms and rain already done?
The city's 2010 Storm Water Master Plan gives Norman an annual average rainfall of nearly 35 inches and describes the city as prone to flash flooding. The May 2015 rain showed what that means in practice. A local news report had the month at 12.78 inches by May 20, against a normal May of 4.71 inches. On May 6 the National Weather Service issued its first-ever Flash Flood Emergency, for the south Oklahoma City metro, an area that included Moore and Norman. Some strip malls in Norman had water up to their businesses.
Other storms have left their own marks. In November 2008 a storm in northwest Norman left thousands of residents needing roof replacements, according to the National Weather Service's Norman storm data for that month. In April 2021 baseball-sized hail broke windows on the west sides of homes across the city, and in October 2021 a second hailstorm of three inches or more followed, according to a 2023 journal article on Norman hailstorms. A crew reads the ceilings and attics of a house hit this way before it reads the floor.
Where does storm water go, and what does it do to a house?
Storm water in Norman moves through named channels, and the channels decide where it ends up. Lake Thunderbird stood at 1049.18 feet on May 28, 2015, against a normal level of 1039.0 feet, according to a regional news report's lake-level table, and the lake's inflows peaked near 60,000 cubic feet per second that month. In July 2023 water from Moore and Oklahoma City flowed down through Norman into the lake, and city officials described the flooding as an ongoing problem.
Imhoff Creek and Bishop Creek are the two creeks the city has worked on directly. In September 2024 the city bought a flood-prone property on Imhoff Creek and turned it into the Lahoma Grove greenspace, a property that lies almost entirely in the creek's floodway. In October 2024 residents told the council about significant blockages in Bishop Creek, and the Bishop Creek Eco Park includes a detention pond to help control downstream flooding. When creek water rises, the low rooms of a nearby house take water from the outside in, and that is when extraction is needed quickly. Work such as extraction comes first.
What does a technician check in a Norman house?
The work starts where the water is and moves outward. In a house with a crawl space or a basement, the lowest room takes water first, so the technician reads the floor, the sill and the wall cavity there before the rooms above. Norman homes are not all built alike, and the crew does not assume how a house was put together from its outside. The readings in the joists, the subfloor and the wall show whether water is still moving through the structure.
Cold weather is a separate concern. In February 2011 frozen pipes at the University of Oklahoma caused problems for students during an early-February cold snap. In February 2021 a frozen pipe burst at the city's water treatment plant, and an outage the city put at 11 hours followed. A line that splits inside a cold wall can leak for a long time before anyone sees a stain, so the cavity behind a frozen wall is checked even when the room looks fine. See hidden leak detection for how that is traced.
Who does the work, and what should a Norman owner check?
Norman Water Damage Restoration answers the call, and an independent local company does the work. Ask the company which licences, registrations and permits apply to your job, and check them with the agency that issues them before the work begins. For a question about whether a repair needs a permit, the City of Norman is the place to ask, and the answer should be in writing if the repair is large.
For insurance, the Oklahoma Insurance Department is the state regulator for insurance claims. Keep the photographs, the readings and the removal list from the first visit, and treat the written scope and price, agreed on site before work starts, as the document to file with the claim. The policy decides what is covered.
