Preventing Storm Season Water Damage in Oklahoma

Oklahoma Asks a Lot of a House

There is no single storm season here. Spring brings supercells, hail, and tornadoes. Summer brings flash flooding when dry ground sheds rainfall instead of absorbing it. Winter brings ice storms that coat trees and power lines and split pipes in unheated spaces. A house that has just been checked for one of those is not prepared for the next. The list below is organized by what to look at and when.

One concept ties all of it together: water goes where the ground and the building send it. Almost every prevention task is about giving water an easy path away from the foundation rather than an easy path into it.

Before Spring: Roof, Gutters, and Grading

Look at the roof from the ground with binoculars

You are looking for lifted or missing shingles, and for anything that is no longer sitting flat: ridge caps, flashing, boots around plumbing vents, and the seal around a chimney. Hail is the quiet offender. It cracks the rubber boots and seals around penetrations without tearing off a single shingle, and the leak that follows takes months to show up as a ceiling stain. After any hail event of size, that inspection is worth doing within a week or two.

Clear gutters and test the downspouts

A gutter packed with shingle grit and last fall's leaves sends water over the edge and straight down against the foundation, which is exactly where it does the most damage in clay soil. Clear them, then run a hose into the gutter and watch where the water comes out. Downspouts should discharge several feet from the house, ideally onto a splash block or a pipe that carries it further. A downspout that empties directly at the base of a wall is a foundation leak waiting for the next big rain.

Walk the grading

The ground should slope away from the house. Low spots against the foundation, settled backfill, and landscape beds that have been built up above the siding all push water the wrong way. Adding soil to restore a slope is one of the least expensive water damage prevention tasks there is, and one of the most effective.

Before the First Big Rain: Sump Pumps and Drainage

• Pour a bucket of water into the sump pit and confirm the pump starts, runs, and shuts off.
• Check that the discharge line is clear and exits away from the foundation, not into a spot that drains back toward it.
• Test the backup. A battery or water-powered backup only helps if the battery is charged or the water supply valve is open.
• Test any float alarm, and replace batteries annually.
• Look at interior floor drains and confirm they are not clogged or dry.
• If there is a crawlspace, check that vents are open and the vapor barrier is intact.

Storm outages are the reason backups matter. A sump pump on grid power is useless in exactly the situation that fills a basement, because the storm that floods the pit is usually the storm that took the power out.

Before Winter: Frozen Pipes and Ice Dams

Oklahoma's winter damage is often more expensive than its storm damage, because it happens inside walls and attics where nobody is watching. Three areas matter most: pipes in unheated spaces, hose bibs, and the attic edge where heat escapes.

• Disconnect garden hoses and shut off and drain exterior spigots before the first hard freeze.
• Insulate supply lines in the attic, garage, and any crawlspace, and wrap pipes that run against an exterior wall.
• Open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls during a hard freeze so warm air reaches the pipes.
• Know which pipe is at risk and where its shutoff is. A pipe that splits while nobody is home has hours to run.
• Keep the thermostat above 55 degrees even when the house is empty.
• Add insulation and seal air leaks at the attic floor to reduce ice dams, which form when warm air melts snow that then refreezes at the eaves.

The Five Things Worth Doing This Weekend

1. Find the main water shutoff and turn it off and back on, so you know it works. Tell everyone in the house where it is.
2. Clear the gutters and confirm downspouts discharge well away from the foundation.
3. Test the sump pump and its backup with a bucket of water.
4. Walk the perimeter looking for low spots, and press the top edge of the baseboards along exterior walls.
5. Photograph your home's interior and exterior now, so you have a baseline before anything is damaged.

That last item sounds trivial and is not. A set of dated photographs taken before a loss is useful when you are trying to establish what was there and what condition it was in.

What to Do When Prevention Is Not Enough

Two situations are worth calling about the same day rather than waiting. The first is any water that has been standing for more than a day, because warm, humid Oklahoma conditions let mold begin growing within 24 to 48 hours. The second is a wet area near electrical equipment, where the safety question comes before the cleanup question. In both cases, note where the water came from and photograph it before anything is moved, because that record decides how the loss is classified.

For everything else, the honest rule is that drying speed sets the final cost. A wet carpet addressed within hours is usually a drying job. The same carpet left until the following weekend is usually a replacement job with a mold question attached.

Water in the house today? Call (888) 217-5329 and describe the room and the source. The line is answered around the clock, including during the storm.