Category 3 floodwater cleanup for Dallas slab homes and businesses: removal, cleaning, flood cuts and structural drying.
Fastest: call (833) 490-5225. Or send this and we call you back.
Floodwater that came in from outside is Category 3 under the IICRC S500 standard, so porous materials are removed rather than dried. Dallas Water Damage Restoration handles that cleanup across Dallas and Dallas County: extraction, removal, cleaning, antimicrobial treatment and drying. Someone answers the phone whatever the hour, and a crew is sent as fast as one is available.
Do not drive or walk into moving water, and do not go back into a flooded building until you know the power is off and the structure is sound. Once you are inside safely, photograph every room before anything is touched, because flood claims live and die on photographs taken before the cleanup started.
Dallas floods from above and from the side, not from a basement. The city drains into the Trinity River and its tributaries, and the creeks that cross it collect rain from large areas: White Rock Creek alone drains 139 square miles and Five Mile Creek 55. When a storm sits over the city, the water that cannot get into the drainage system runs across streets and yards and pushes in under exterior doors and across garage slabs.
Flood cleanup is not the same job as a burst pipe. The water carries soil, lawn chemicals, street runoff and often sewage, so the rules are stricter: carpet, pad, insulation and the lower part of the drywall come out rather than being dried, surfaces are cleaned and treated, and only then does the drying equipment go in.
Contamination. Water from outside is Category 3 under the IICRC S500 standard, which means grossly contaminated: soil, street runoff, lawn chemicals and often sewage. Anything porous it reached comes out instead of being dried, what remains is cleaned and then treated with an antimicrobial, and the crew works in protective equipment.
A clean supply-line leak is a drying problem. A flood is a removal, cleaning and drying problem in that order, and skipping the first two steps is how a house ends up smelling for years. Carpet, pad, wet insulation, particleboard furniture and the bottom of the drywall are all treated as losses from the start.
Water also gets worse the longer it sits. Warm standing water in a closed-up Dallas house grows bacteria quickly, so the gap between the storm and the first extraction changes how much of the structure can be saved.
Generally not. A Texas homeowners policy normally excludes flood, so flooding needs a policy of its own, written through FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program or a private insurer, and NFIP cover usually takes 30 days to start. Mold that follows a flood is commonly excluded too. Read your policy or ask your agent.
The 30-day wait is the part that catches people. A policy bought when the forecast turns is not a policy that covers the storm on the way, so flood coverage is a decision to make in a dry month. Being outside a mapped floodplain is not the same as being safe, since cloudburst flooding is about rainfall rate and local drainage.
Whatever your coverage, document as if it matters. Wide photographs of every room before cleanup, close-ups of the silt line, an inventory of discarded contents and the crew's moisture log all help. The crew supplies that documentation; what gets paid is your insurer's decision, and Texas law puts the deductible on you rather than on any contractor who offers to cover it.
At ground level, because there is no basement to fill. Water comes in under exterior doors and sliding door tracks, across the garage slab and through the garage door seal, through weep holes in brick veneer, under siding, and sometimes up through floor vents and ductwork cast into or running under the slab.
A slab house gives floodwater a wide, flat path once it is inside. Two inches of water across a first floor is not a puddle in one room; it is every room on that level, every wall base, every cabinet run and the ductwork in between. Garages are usually hit first and worst because the slab is lower and the seal is only a rubber strip.
Ducts deserve a specific mention. Supply runs under or within a slab can hold standing water after the floors look dry, and that water sits in the path of the air you breathe all summer. They are checked, emptied and cleaned as part of the job rather than left to dry on their own.
Because the damage is inside the wall, not on it. A flood cut removes drywall two to four feet above the water line so the wet insulation can be bagged out and the framing, bottom plate and back of the exterior wall can be cleaned, treated and dried. Sealed-up contaminated insulation does not dry.
The height is chosen from the readings, not from habit, and the cut is made at a sensible line so the repair is straightforward later. Where the wall has no insulation and the water only touched the very bottom, a smaller cut or drilled ventilation may do instead, and that is explained before anything is opened.
Older buildings add a step. Pre-1978 homes fall under the EPA lead renovation rule, which calls for lead-safe work practices when painted surfaces are disturbed. Texas also runs an asbestos program through the Department of State Health Services, and buildings treated as commercial, which includes apartment buildings with more than two dwelling units, need a survey before renovation or demolition. Rules for single-family homes differ, so ask about both before old drywall, joint compound, textured ceilings or sheet flooring is cut.
Longer than a clean-water loss. Once the materials are out, drying the slab, framing and bottom plates usually takes a week or more, because concrete falls into the Class 4 specialty drying group and gives up moisture slowly. Rebuilding then follows, and that is a separate stretch of weeks.
Two things set the pace. The concrete slab holds water through its full thickness and releases it gradually, and the open wall cavities have to come down to a reading that matches dry material elsewhere in the same building. Pushing new drywall onto a damp bottom plate undoes the whole job.
Contents run on their own clock. Furniture, boxes and soft goods that can be saved go out for cleaning and storage while the structure is open, which is why a pack-out is often part of a flood job and rarely part of a pipe leak. Call (833) 490-5225 as soon as the water is out of the building, because the first 24 hours decide how much is salvageable.
Treat all floodwater as contaminated: wear boots and gloves, keep children and pets out of it entirely, and wash before eating. Never step into standing water in a building whose power is still on, and stay out of a structure that is leaning, has a sagging ceiling or smells of gas. Do not run a household vacuum or a box fan on floodwater.
Power, gas and the structure come first. Outlets, panels, furnaces and air handlers that sat in floodwater are treated as hazards, and an electrician or the utility is brought in where needed. Contents are photographed in place before anything moves.
Deeper water is pumped out, then extraction units clear what the pump leaves behind, including water sitting inside floor ducts in a slab house. Mud and debris are shovelled and scraped out rather than pushed further into the building.
In Category 3 water, carpet, pad, wet insulation, particleboard and the lower drywall come out. A flood cut takes the drywall back two to four feet above the water line so the cavity, the bottom plate and the back of the brick veneer can be reached, cleaned and dried.
Framing, slab and remaining hard surfaces are cleaned, HEPA-vacuumed where needed and treated with an antimicrobial before drying begins. Treating a surface that has not been cleaned first does not work, so the order matters.
Air movers and dehumidifiers run on the open cavities and the slab, with daily readings until materials match a dry reference. You get photographs, the moisture log and a list of what was removed for your flood insurer.
Water leaving a channel and spreading onto the floodplain beside it. In Dallas that means the Trinity and the creeks feeding it, including White Rock Creek, which leaves the White Rock Lake spillway and runs south to the river. This water is at its dirtiest and is the slowest to recede.
The common one. A storm drops more rain in an hour than the storm drains can take, water sheets across a street and a yard, and finds the lowest door threshold or the garage. It can hit houses nowhere near a creek, which is why rainfall rate matters as much as the map.
The City of Dallas maintains about 22 miles of levees along the Trinity, and rain that falls on the city side of them has to be collected and pumped. The city names March 19, 2006 as an interior drainage flood, and that type of flooding happens without the river ever topping a levee.
Flood jobs are priced on the wet footprint, the volume of material that has to leave the building and the days the slab and framing need. Category 3 water sits higher per square foot than clean water, because almost nothing porous survives and whatever stays has to be cleaned before it can be dried.
| Job | Typical range | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Slab-on-grade flood mitigation, first floor (extraction, flood cuts, drying, antimicrobial) | $3,000–$12,000 | The usual whole-job range for a flooded first floor |
| Category 3 (black water) mitigation (per sq ft) | $7–$15 | Covers removal, cleaning and treatment of contaminated materials |
| Flood cut: remove wet drywall 2–4 ft up (per linear ft of wall) | $3–$8 | Includes bagging out the insulation behind the cut |
| Wet carpet pad removal and disposal (per sq ft) | $0.75–$2.00 | Carpet and pad touched by floodwater are discarded, not dried |
| Antimicrobial application (per sq ft) | $0.50–$2.00 | Applied after cleaning and before the drying equipment goes in |
| Contents pack-out, cleaning and storage | $1,000–$6,000+ | Used where furniture and belongings have to leave while the structure is opened up |
Estimates for Dallas County in 2026, not a price list. The emergency-stage price is explained and approved before work starts, and rebuilding is quoted after drying. Flood losses are usually covered by a separate flood policy, and coverage is decided by your insurer.
If it's an emergency, call now. For non-urgent flood damage cleanup, send the form and we'll call you back.
Dallas drains to the Trinity River, and the river is kept off downtown by about 22 miles of levees maintained by the City of Dallas. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said those levees may not hold the standard project flood they were designed for, which is a sobering thing to know about a system that runs past the central business district and out toward West Dallas under the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. It also means rain that falls behind the levees has to be collected and pumped, and the city names March 19, 2006 as exactly that kind of interior drainage flood.
The creeks matter more to most homeowners than the river does. White Rock Creek drains 139 square miles, leaving the White Rock Lake spillway, a lake of 1,254 acres, and running south to the Trinity, while Five Mile Creek drains 55 square miles of its own. The City of Dallas lists June 9, 2019, June 11, 2009, May 29, 2015 and the broader 2015 season among its widespread flooding events, alongside March 19, 2006. A house well away from any mapped channel can still take water when its street cannot drain.
August 22, 2022 is the local benchmark for a cloudburst. DFW Airport recorded 9.19 inches of rain in 24 hours, its second-highest 24-hour total after 9.57 inches on September 4 and 5, 1932. Southeast Dallas reported 15.31 inches and Balch Springs 12.60, Dallas Fire-Rescue handled nearly 200 vehicle emergencies in a single day, some metro apartments took on as much as two feet of water, and the month went on to become the wettest August on record at DFW. Nights like that generate more simultaneous calls than any crew fleet in Dallas County can answer at once, which is why dispatch is honest rather than promised.
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Moisture mapping, extraction, structural drying and repair for Dallas homes and businesses, whether the water came from above or below.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
Texas homeowners policies generally cover water damage that is sudden and accidental, such as a burst pipe, a toilet overflow or a broken washing-machine hose.
Water that came in from outside is treated as grossly contaminated, so flash flood cleanup is removal and cleaning first and drying second.
Carpet, pad, mattresses, upholstered furniture, particleboard furniture, wet insulation and soaked drywall are normally losses in Category 3 water. Solid wood furniture, hard-surface items, metal, glass and sealed plastics can often be cleaned. Photograph and list everything you discard before it leaves the house, because that list is what an adjuster works from.
Because mapped floodplains describe channel flooding, while house flooding in Dallas can come from rainfall that the local drainage cannot carry away fast enough. A street that ponds, a blocked inlet, a low driveway or a yard that slopes toward the garage can put water inside a house that is nowhere near a creek.
Sometimes, and it depends on the water and the time. Solid wood that was only briefly wet with relatively clean street water can occasionally be dried with mats and monitoring. Boards soaked with contaminated water, or wood that has cupped hard and lost its bond to a slab, come out. The readings and the category decide, and you see both.
If floodwater got into it, yes. Ducts that ran through or under a flooded slab can hold standing water and silt after the floors look dry, and that sits in the air path for the rest of the year. Cleaning or replacing affected sections is part of a flood job, and the air handler itself is checked separately.
No, but nothing rules it out. Pulling wet materials and drying the structure quickly lowers the odds, and the EPA's 24 to 48 hours is guidance on how fast, not a cutoff; the agency also notes that mold may have grown even in materials dried inside that time. If mold has already established, Texas rules apply: TDLR licenses mold assessors and remediators, a license is required at 25 contiguous square feet or more, and the assessor and the remediator on a project must be different license holders.
Yes. Offices, warehouses, retail units and multi-unit residential buildings in Dallas and across Dallas County get the same category-based process on a larger footprint, usually quoted after a walkthrough. The commercial water damage and apartment and condo water damage pages cover how access, scheduling and documentation work on those jobs.