St. Louis Company Suffers from Flooding

The flooding that hit our area in December 2015 and January 2016 was overwhelming.

We are so proud of our teams for helping so many of our customers get back to their lives by cleaning up both residential and commercial locations.

The Problem:

10,300square feet of warehouse space and 3,000square feet of office space were affected by the major flooding that took place across the St. Louis metro area and surrounding counties in late 2015/early 2016. At 4pm on December 29th, The owner of this business was originally told by police and a city representative that they were in the clear of the flooding and that the water would miss their facility by 2 feet. Just to be safe, they moved their computer system out and moved all files a couple feet off of the ground. At 4:30am on December 30th, the water was still 40 inches below floor level, but they were warned at 7:00am that morning that they would probably see 18” of water. Employees proceeded to move everything to 36” off the floor and they contacted Woodard and their insurance company to prepare for impending water damage. At 8:00 am, they loaded up and moved out a completely full tractor trailer, and water was already lapping at the bottom of the trailer. By 10:30am, floodwater began to enter their facility, which meant that it had risen 40” in just 6 hours. The employees’ last inspection of the building at 1:30pm showed 18” of water on the floor. At 9:30am on December 31st, the building owner inspected the building at a distance and suspected at least 40 inches of water to be present. On January 1st, 2016 at 9:30am, employees visited the facility to see if they could begin cleanup. There were still 4” of water in the building at this time, but it was receding quickly so they began cleaning up and called Woodard in to help.

The Solution:

At 1:00pm on January 1st, we dispatched crews to the facility to set up a mitigation plan. By 8:00pm that evening, we had removed carpet and piles of debris from the building, and 1/3 of the building was cleaned of mud from the receding waters. The next morning at 7:00am, a Woodard crew of over 20 people arrived to continue our cleanup process, and by 8pm that evening, almost all damaged goods were removed from the office, drywall had been cut out and gutted up to 4’ high, salvaged goods had been boxed up, muck and mud had been cleaned up, and floors were 90% dry. On January 3rd at 7am, 15 Woodard employees arrived to finish up our cleanup process by treating entire facility with an antimicrobial solution to prevent mold and mildew growth and to complete the dry out process. At 6:30pm, this company’s employees fired up 70% of their equipment, all of which ran flawlessly. On January 4, 2016, this company was back in business serving its customers!

Summary:

The flooding that hit our area in December 2015 and January 2016 was overwhelming. We are so proud of our teams for helping so many of our customers get back to their lives by cleaning up both residential and commercial locations after floodwaters receded. This client in particular was incredible to work with. They called Woodard proactively to prepare us for the job at hand, insisted on having their own employees present to help with anything we might have needed, and were more than grateful when we were able to get them back to business so quickly. The business owner said, “I knew we made the right call to pre-arrange to have Woodard come in, if we were to get our business up and going.” We are really happy we were able to help this owner and company recover so quickly from this devastation.