The flood’s over. Now the reset.

Floodwater plays by different rules

A burst pipe is clean water; a flood is not. Water that comes through the yard, the street, or backing-up drains carries silt, bacteria, and whatever it picked up along the way — which is why flood cleanup is a sanitation job first and a drying job second. Everything the water touched gets cleaned and treated, porous materials that can’t be sanitized get removed, and the whole scope is documented before demolition starts.

The Willamette has flooded this valley before — the ’96 flood is still the local yardstick — and even short of the river rising, a week of heavy valley rain sends groundwater into crawlspaces and basements from West Salem to the river towns. The cleanup standard doesn’t change with the source: get it clean, get it dry, prove both.

What cleanup includes

Debris and silt out first, then extraction, then the wash-down: affected surfaces cleaned and sanitized, contents sorted into salvageable and not, and unsalvageable porous material — soaked insulation, swollen particleboard, contaminated pad — removed and bagged. Once the space is clean, drying equipment runs to measured moisture targets, and you get the photos and logs your insurer will ask for.