The wife of a neighbor of mine called me up at 2:00 am to ask me a favor. She was asking if I could let her and her three children (the husband was out of town) sleep in my guest room that morning because their house got flooded with water coming from a burst pipe underneath their kitchen sink. I told her that it was perfectly okay and even offered my help in the flood damage cleanup in the morning.
When she got to my house, she was frantic because she had realized that they might have been electrocuted in the sleep because the water level rose to above ankle deep and that their electric outlets were located just above the floor. She also mentioned that water was still running and that she didn't know how to stop it from flowing. I offered to take care of it (since I'm an extremely good neighbor). I got into my rubber boots and immediately went to their house to check it out.
Upon reaching their house, I noticed that their power was still on so I went to their house's fuse box to switch it off. I then turned their water off but since it was still dark, decided to go back to sleep and deal with the flood damage cleanup in the morning.
The following morning, I called up a few friends to help out with the flood damage cleanup. A lot of their stuff were submerged, but to my own assessment were not damaged. They were fortunate that the water that soaked most of their stuffs were clean and not the muddy, contaminated kind you would get from a natural flood disaster.
The flood damage cleanup that we did to their house involved removing the larger furniture first towards their yard for easy cleaning and drying. Then we separated the soaked items by categorizing them into electrical items, upholstered items and such. This is so that they will have similar methods for drying. Most of the upholstered items such as throw pillows and cushions were washed and hung out to dry. For the electrical gadgets such as the laptop and the Xbox that were submerged in water, the flood damage cleanup was left to a professional electrical shop.
The flood damage cleanup went smoothly. Able-bodied friends and husbands were there to help out with the heavy lifting. Neighborhood wives were there to make sure that there were snacks to be eaten during breaks. There was even a neighbor who made sure that we wash our hands after every flood damage cleanup activity that we did.
Different neighbors had different advices and opinions on how to perform the flood damage cleanup and this diversity of ideas were very helpful. For example, a neighbor who has experience working with wood gave good suggestions on how to dry the wooden furniture and the antiques that were water-soaked.
The mattresses that were soaked took more time to dry during the flood damage cleanup and I ended up having my neighbors stay with me for a couple of days. It was worth it because good neighbors should help out in any way possible.
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