Drying out after a flash flood?

I'm not sure if this made the news in the U.S., but over the last 48 hours, flash floods have hit the southern half of Alberta pretty hard, including the City of Calgary.

A freak, stalled system dumped 8 inches of rain in 18 hours, on top of the normal seasonal snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains.

Basically, 100,000 people in cities and towns have had to run for higher ground.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/21/...massive-floods/

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/20/...uthern-alberta/

I'm farther north and am not affected, but we have family in the area. I was curious as to what priorities and methods you would use to clean up and dry out a flooded house.

No personal experience with repairing a flooded house, but from what I understand and have read, pretty much everything that got wet will need to be replaced. Apparently, this is especially true for wallboard/plasterboard. It will not dry properly and will develop one or more types of mold some of which can be a serious health hazard(even if on the outside it looks OK, in the wall it can be very bad).

Our local TV stations have been running advertisements for flood insurance. Most, if not all, homeowners insurance policies in the US do not cover flood damage, so your on your own unless you buy a separate policy.

http://www.redcross.org/prepare/disaster/flood

City of Calgary has posted a useful PDF that may cover some of what you are looking for:

[url=]http://www.cocnmp.com/eoc/ArrivingHome2.pdf[/url]

For the most part if it is just wet that method works. But if a lot of mud came with it, there is a bit more work to it than that. Cutting up the drywall and santizing the studs is only part of the work. (PS black mould will grow on starch of the paper backings of the drywall and then onto the studs if not caught in time). Flooring and wood sub-floors will have to be replaced. And if the water came higher than 18" in the basement, you also have to replace your electrical outlets and any equipment like furnaces and water heaters. If water hits them, the inspectors will red tag them. If the water reaches the electrical panel then you are replacing your entire service. From the pics I've seen of Calgary (I've got lots of friends and relatives there) some of those homes are completely underwater near the rivers. Those are nearly a total loss except for the foundations. (Why homeowners build in flood plains is beyond me! Why the developers would choose to do this is illogical and why the City would allow development in the first place totally baffles me!)

Edit: Packrat's link to the Calgary document is great. It is very comphrensive and full of good information!

The Saddledome (home of the Flames) has water up to the 10th row. While a proposal for a new stadium is in the works, they will still need to do inteirm repairs as the dressing rooms, ice equipment and concessions are toast. The stampede grounds themselves will be lucky to get dried out in time for the Stampede let allow any remediation. And then there is all the road work, power lines, transformers, rail lines, upheaved sewer and water lines and Calgary is looking a multi-billion $ price to repair. [I've already made my little donation for relief efforts.] This isn't just Calgary, this flooding affect most of the communities from the eastern Rockies and downstream and all the way to the east side of Saskatchewan! 90% of Cumberland House just evac'd this morning.

Yeah, it's a mess. Early estimates of total damage run $3-5 billion.

Early word is that our family didn't get hit nearly as hard as others. Flooded crawlspace, but the main floor is okay.

Regardless, thanks for the links and info.