“It was call after call after call. The phone never stopped ringing,” said John Langel, crew chief for Servpro of Hershey/Swatara.
600 calls to Servpro of Hershey and Swatara over the last ten days, all thanks to last week’s storms.
“Typically when a storm is coming, we know about it. This one caught me totally by surprise,” said Joe Lapp, owner of Servpro of Hershey/Swatara.
And floodwater isn’t always the easiest to tackle.
“The tricky thing about floodwater is, it’s what’s called category three. That means we don’t know what’s in it. It came across the grass. It picked up pesticides, pet feces, who knows what?” said Lapp.
Therefore, they need to remove everything the water came in contact with, including the floor, carpet, and pieces of wall.
And then, of course, dry it all out.
“We’re going to be swamped over the next year and that will be taking care of people who tried to fix the water by themselves, they thought they had it dry,” said Lapp.
And…wound up with mold.
And that can happen as quickly as 48 hours post-flood.
“We’ve got meters, we can tell you what is dry. Just because you touch the wall and the wall feels dry, doesn’t mean that’s what that wall is actually reading,” said Langel.
Without insurance, this work can cost upwards of $5,000.
We are told only half of Servpro customers last week had insurance, and will have to pay out of pocket.
Both men from Servpro emphasized the importance of calling your insurance company to learn what your coverage is, and make sure it is appropriate for when something like this happens again.