Eyebrow: THE FIRST 30 MINUTES

What to Do When Water Is in Your Home: The First-30-Minutes Guide

Water in your home triggers panic, and panic triggers bad decisions — wading into electrified water, tearing out walls before photographing them, waiting “to see if it dries.” This guide replaces panic with a sequence. It’s called the First-30-Minutes framework: the exact order of operations that protects your safety, your home, and your insurance claim, whether you’re facing a burst pipe in Bartlett, a flooded basement in Midtown, or storm water pushing through your back door in East Memphis.

Memorize the shape of it now. When water is actually rising, you won’t be reading — you’ll be doing.

The First-30-Minutes checklist

Do these in order. Each step takes minutes; together they’re the difference between a manageable loss and a disaster.

1. Protect yourself first — electricity and water don’t mix

If water is near outlets, appliances, or your breaker panel, stay out of it. Never touch standing water when there’s any chance of electrical contact. If you can reach your breaker box safely without walking through water, shut off power to the affected area. If the panel itself is wet or you must cross water to reach it, don’t — call an electrician or MLGW emergency line instead. No possession is worth a shock injury.

2. Stop the source — find your main water shutoff

If the water is coming from plumbing (burst pipe, failed supply hose, ruptured water heater), shut off your home’s main water valve now. Every minute of flow adds square footage to your damage — and to your bill. In most Memphis homes, the main shutoff is:
– In the garage or utility room where the water line enters,
– In a crawlspace or basement near the front foundation wall,
– Or at the exterior meter box near the street (you may need a meter key).

If you don’t know where yours is, go find it today — before you need it. Show every adult in the household. This single piece of knowledge saves more money in water emergencies than anything else.

If the water is coming from outside (storm runoff, rising creek water), skip the shutoff — you can’t stop the weather. Move to step 3.

3. Protect what matters most

Move valuables, electronics, important documents, and sentimental items to dry ground — upstairs if you have one. Pull up rugs and move furniture legs onto foil or blocks if water is shallow. Don’t risk yourself for replaceable stuff; do grab the irreplaceable.

4. Photograph everything — before anything moves

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it’s the one your insurance claim depends on. Before you move, mop, or throw away a single thing:
– Video-walk every affected room, narrating the date and time.
– Photograph water lines on walls and furniture (a ruler in frame shows depth).
– Photograph the source if visible — the burst pipe, the failed hose, the water heater.
– Capture serial numbers on damaged appliances.

Insurers pay for what’s documented. “It was worse before I cleaned up” is not documentation.

5. Start safe mitigation

Mop or blot what you safely can. Move wet items to a dry area with airflow. If weather allows, open windows — Memphis’s outdoor air is humid, but moving air still helps surfaces. Do not use your HVAC system to dry a space with suspected contamination (sewage, floodwater) — you’ll distribute contaminants through the ductwork.

6. Call for professional help

Some jobs are DIY-able. A small, clean-water spill you caught in minutes might be. But burst pipes, flooded basements, sewage backups, and anything involving Category 2 or 3 water need professional extraction and drying — the water you can’t see inside walls and subfloors is what becomes mold in 24 to 48 hours. Water damage restoration services are available across Memphis, Shelby County, and the Mid-South — call (901) 286-9686.

“What should I do if my basement is flooding?”

Basements flood differently in Memphis than the national advice assumes, because of what’s under our feet. In Midtown, the high water table pushes moisture up through basement floors and walls — many Midtown basements flood from below during heavy rain, not from a burst pipe. In East Memphis, the April 2025 flash floods showed how fast storm runoff can overwhelm drainage and pour in through windows, doors, and stairwells.

So the Memphis-specific basement protocol:

1. Don’t go down into standing water until you’re sure the electricity is off to that area. Basements concentrate every electrical hazard in the house.
2. Determine the source if you safely can: water rising through the floor or seeping through walls (groundwater — common in Midtown) vs. water pouring in from outside (storm runoff) vs. a failed sump pump or burst pipe. The source determines both your response and your insurance coverage.
3. If you have a sump pump and it’s not running, check the power and the float switch — a tripped breaker or stuck float is a common, fixable cause.
4. Document, then extract. Photograph everything, then get the water out. A wet basement in 60–80% Memphis humidity starts growing mold within 24 to 48 hours — “wait and see” is the most expensive option.

Basement filling right now? Call (901) 286-9686.

“What to do if a water pipe bursts in your house?”

Burst pipes are Memphis’s signature winter emergency — February 2021 and January 2024 both sent pipes bursting across the Mid-South in single nights. When one lets go:

1. Shut off the main water valve immediately. This is the whole game. A ½-inch supply line can release hundreds of gallons in hours.
2. Shut off electricity to affected areas if water is near wiring or outlets.
3. Drain the remaining water by opening faucets at the lowest point (lets pressure and residual water out).
4. Call a plumber for the pipe repair — then address the water damage. These are two separate jobs: the pipe is the plumber’s, everything the water touched is the restoration job.
5. Start the insurance documentation from the checklist above. A burst pipe is the textbook “sudden and accidental” covered event — see the claims playbook — but only if you document and mitigate promptly.

Prevention note for next winter: insulate exposed pipes, let faucets drip during hard freezes, and know that pipes in exterior walls and unheated crawlspaces burst first. Full freeze-prep checklist

What NOT to do: the five costliest mistakes

1. Don’t wait for it to dry on its own. It won’t — not inside walls, subfloors, and insulation. Every hour of delay in Memphis humidity compounds the damage and can reclassify clean water into a more contaminated (and more expensive) category.

2. Don’t wade into water near electricity. Said twice because people die this way. If in doubt, stay out and call for help.

3. Don’t use bleach on a sewage backup and call it handled. Bleach doesn’t reliably neutralize Category 3 black water in porous materials — and it gives a false sense of safety. Sewage cleanup is professional work, always. Why

4. Don’t tear out or throw away damaged materials before documenting. That soaked carpet, the warped baseboard, the ruined boxes — they’re evidence. Photograph first, discard after (and keep samples if your adjuster wants them).

5. Don’t sign anything in a panic. The door-knocker who shows up while you’re mopping, the “sign here so we can start” work order with no written estimate — emergency doesn’t suspend your right to a written, line-item scope. Know the red flags

DIY or call a professional? An honest decision framework

Not every water incident needs a restoration company. Here’s how to decide honestly:

You can likely handle it yourself: a small, clean-water spill (overflowing sink caught in minutes), fully extracted and dried within hours, no water inside walls, no sewage or storm-water contamination, and you own a wet-vac and fans. Even then, check hidden spots — under the vanity, inside the wall cavity — a day later.

Call a professional: burst or frozen pipes, any basement flooding, sewage or washing-machine backup (gray/black water), water that’s been sitting more than a few hours, water inside walls or ceilings, any musty smell developing, or damage spanning multiple rooms. The deciding factor is almost always the same: water you can’t see. Moisture inside wall cavities, under flooring, and in subfloors doesn’t evaporate on a homeowner timeline — and in Memphis’s 60–80% summer humidity, it becomes mold in 24 to 48 hours.

“Can I repair a burst pipe myself?” — the pipe repair (soldering, SharkBite fitting) is a reasonable DIY for handy homeowners if you can shut off the water and the repair is accessible. The water damage the burst caused is a separate question, and that’s where most DIY efforts fall short: drying the structure properly requires moisture verification, not just fans and hope.

While you wait for help: the useful next hour

If you’ve called for professional help and there’s a wait, here’s what’s genuinely useful:

• Keep documenting. More photos as conditions change. Note times.
• Ventilate safely. Open windows if weather permits; set out fans to move air across wet surfaces (not into wall cavities).
• Inventory damaged contents. Start a simple list — room, item, approximate value, photo taken. Your future self, filing the contents claim, will thank you.
• Protect unaffected areas. Close doors to contain humidity; lay towels at thresholds.
• Call your insurer to open the claim — you don’t need the full picture to start the file.

What doesn’t help: renting a carpet cleaner and calling it done, painting over water stains (they’ll bleed back through, and trapped moisture keeps working), or running a dehumidifier with the windows open (you’re dehumidifying the neighborhood).

After the water stops: the next 48 hours

Stopping the water feels like the end. It’s the middle. In the next 48 hours:

1. Hidden moisture gets found — professional inspection with moisture meters and thermal imaging locates water inside walls, under floors, above ceilings. This is the step that separates a real dry-out from a future mold problem.
2. The category gets confirmed — clean, gray, or black water determines the entire protocol and much of the cost.
3. Your claim file gets built — documentation, professional assessment, adjuster walkthrough.
4. Drying begins — and “feels dry” isn’t the standard; verified-dry moisture readings are. What the full timeline looks like

The homeowners who come through water damage best aren’t the ones who panicked fastest — they’re the ones who worked the sequence: safe, source, valuables, photos, mitigate, call.

First-response questions — straight answers