What to Do Immediately After Your Houston Home Floods

Safety Before Everything Else

Before you reenter a flooded home, confirm that the electrical system has been shut off at the main breaker — from outside the home, before you enter. Floodwater and live electrical current in the same space is fatal, and this combination has claimed lives in Houston during Harvey and subsequent flooding events. If you can't safely reach the main breaker without entering the flooded area, contact CenterPoint Energy to have power cut at the meter.

Do not return to the home while water is still rising. Do not attempt to wade through water of unknown depth or current — six inches of moving water can knock an adult off their feet, and Houston's bayou system can surge rapidly after rainfall stops as upstream water moves downstream.

Once water has receded and electrical safety is confirmed, the clock starts on mold. In Houston's heat and humidity, mold can establish itself within 24 to 48 hours of water intrusion. The mitigation steps below are time-sensitive.

Document Before You Remove

The instinct after a flood is to immediately begin removing water-damaged materials — wet carpet, soaked drywall, damaged furniture. Resist this instinct long enough to document everything first.

Walk through the home with your phone and take video of every room, every water line on the walls, every damaged item in place. Take still photos of significant items and of any visible mold beginning to form. Note the date and time in your narration. This documentation is your evidence for the insurance claim and, if necessary, for any disputes with your insurer or contractor about the scope of damage.

After you've documented thoroughly, begin mitigation. Your insurance policy — homeowners or flood — includes a duty to mitigate provision: you are required to take reasonable steps to prevent additional damage after a covered loss. Failure to mitigate can give a carrier grounds to limit the claim. Removing standing water, pulling wet carpet and padding, and opening windows to promote airflow are reasonable mitigation steps that you should take promptly.

Calling Your Insurance Company

Contact your insurance carrier as soon as practical after the loss — typically within 24 to 72 hours. If you have both a homeowners policy and a separate flood policy, you may be calling two different claims numbers, since they are different policies administered by different entities.

When you call, the carrier will assign a claim number and, for significant losses, dispatch an adjuster. Adjusters in the aftermath of major Houston flood events are often overwhelmed — multiple storms have produced tens of thousands of simultaneous claims across Harris County. You may experience delays in getting an adjuster to your property. Document that you called, note the date and claim number, and follow up in writing (email is fine) if you don't hear back within a reasonable period.

You have the right to hire a licensed public adjuster to represent you in the claims process. Public adjusters work on your behalf — not the carrier's — and take a percentage of the claim settlement as their fee (typically 5 to 15 percent). For large, complex claims or in situations where you believe the carrier's initial estimate is significantly low, a public adjuster can be valuable. For straightforward claims, they may not be necessary.

Contractor Selection: The Assignment of Benefits Warning

After major Houston flood events, door-to-door contractors appear quickly in affected neighborhoods. Some are legitimate, experienced restoration companies. Others are opportunistic, and a small number are outright fraudulent. The most important thing to know: do not sign an Assignment of Benefits (AOB) agreement with any contractor.

An AOB transfers your insurance claim rights to the contractor, who then deals directly with your carrier on your behalf. In theory, this simplifies things for you. In practice, it removes you from the process, can result in inflated claims that create problems with your insurer, and has been a significant source of insurance fraud in Texas and Florida following major storm events. Keep your claim in your name and choose contractors you have vetted independently.

Trusted mitigation: Get water extraction and structural drying started as soon as possible with a licensed water damage restoration company. This step — not the reconstruction — is time-critical. A good mitigation company will document the drying process with moisture readings, which becomes part of the claim file.

What Flood Restoration Actually Costs and How Long It Takes

Most Houston homeowners significantly underestimate both the cost and the timeline of full flood restoration. This gap between expectation and reality is one of the most disorienting parts of the recovery experience — and it's worth understanding before it happens.

Cost: A moderate flood — four to six inches of water across living areas — typically costs $35,000–$70,000 in hard remediation and rebuild costs for a 1,500–2,000 square foot home. That covers tear-out of flooring, drywall, insulation, and cabinetry to the flood line; structural drying (typically 3–5 days with commercial equipment); and rebuild to pre-loss condition. A significant flood — twelve or more inches — routinely runs $80,000–$150,000 or more depending on finishes, the extent of damage to mechanical systems, and whether the substantial damage threshold is crossed and code upgrades are required. These figures reflect normal market conditions. After a major event like Harvey, contractor demand drives costs 20–40 percent higher than normal pricing — which is exactly when everyone needs the work done at once.

Timeline: Complete flood restoration is not a 30- to 60-day process for most Houston homes. A realistic timeline from flood to move-back is 6 to 12 months for significant damage. The drying process alone takes 3–5 days. Waiting for insurance adjusters after a major event can add another 2–6 weeks — NFIP adjusters after Harvey were sometimes backlogged 30–90 days. Permitting, contractor scheduling in a saturated market, materials lead times, and inspections all extend the timeline. For many Harvey-affected families, the gap between flooding and returning home was 8 to 14 months.

During that period, you're paying for somewhere to live. Hotel rates, short-term rentals, and extended-stay costs in Houston are not trivial expenses over 6 to 12 months. Your homeowners policy's additional living expense (ALE) coverage pays for this — but only if you have a homeowners policy in addition to flood coverage. NFIP flood policies do not include ALE. If flood is your only coverage, that displacement cost comes out of your own finances.

Keep Every Receipt

From the moment you evacuate your home, keep receipts for everything related to the loss: hotel costs, meals, clothing purchased because your household items are inaccessible, storage unit rental, costs of the mitigation company, any materials you buy for temporary repairs. These expenses — called additional living expenses (ALE) or loss of use — are typically covered under your homeowners policy while your home is uninhabitable.

Flood policies through the NFIP do not cover additional living expenses. If you have flood coverage only and not homeowners, your ALE is out of pocket. If you have both, your homeowners policy's ALE provision applies for covered perils — and the question of whether the homeowners policy covers the event (wind-driven rain, for example, as opposed to flooding) becomes important.

A good agent will help you navigate which policy responds to which part of the loss. This is one of the post-claim services that distinguishes an independent agent with local knowledge from a direct-to-consumer carrier.