I have seen a number of news reports on television showing houses that have been affected by natural flooding and how the different residents there are coping and starting their flood damage cleanup. I have always felt sorry for the families that have become victims of flooding however I couldn't imagine what they were feeling because I have never experienced flooding or flood damage cleanup first hand until two years back. This is my flood experience story.

I was in sales before and as part of my job, I got transferred to a lot of areas and have lived in a lot of apartments. One house I rented was perfect for me. It is a small one-storey one-room apartment that was located inside a nice subdivision. The rent was very reasonable that I was surprised that the apartment was still available. The reason for this surprised me a few weeks after I had moved in.

My flooding experienced happened when I woke up early one morning because of the sound of gushing water. As I started to get out of bed to turn the lights on, I was started to feel cold muddy water at my feet. The flood water was ankle deep but was stable. I immediately climbed back to bed thinking that I might get electrocuted if the electrical outlets have been submerged. I then realized that the power was out. This probably happened due to the strong torrential rains and winds that were brought by a hurricane during the night.

As the rains stopped, I began to assess the amount of damage the muddy flood waters have caused. I knew then that calling a flood damage cleanup company was the best way to handle things but since the entire subdivision got flooded, I knew that most companies would be too busy and that I would have to wait my turn. I decided to do my own flood damage cleanup.

The first thing that I made sure of was that the muddy waters have stopped flowing in the apartment before starting the flood damage cleanup. I then found out that a river had overflowed because of the torrential rains and that it was the reason for flooding.

Because I had only moved in and had only unpacked a few belongings, the amount of damage was minimal. My flood damage cleanup involved only washing shoes and bags with soap and water and using bleach for rubber shoes to get the odor out and to disinfect them as well.

It was a good thing that most of my stuff was stored inside plastic tubs and most of the furniture that I bought was made of metal and plastic. This made my flood damage cleanup a lot easier. The bulk of my cleanup work only involved the removal of mud from the apartment floors. It was a good thing too that the apartment had hardwood floors. Had the apartment been covered with carpet, I would have had to spend a lot having the carpet cleaned if not replaced with a new one.