Emergency
Storm Surge & Tidal Flooding Starke, FL
Surge and tidal water rise from the ground up and carry salt and silt with them. Anything porous they soaked is treated as contaminated. Outside water that rose into the building is treated as contaminated, and porous material it reached is removed. Salt left behind in materials keeps pulling water from the air, so it is cleaned out with the rest.
Shut off the water, then pick up the phone
Often needed alongside
- Emergency Water Extraction
Standing water removed before it soaks into slab, block and flooring - the first step after any failure, and the one humid air makes urgent.
- Wind-Driven Rain Intrusion
Wind pushes rain sideways through window frames, stucco and the base of the wall. The roof can hold and the house still take water.
- Sewer & Septic Backflow Cleanup
Heavy rain and a high water table can push sewage back through the lowest drain in the building. Clear or murky, it is handled as sewage.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the paint peeling low on an old brick building in Starke?
Often the brick is wet behind it. Many of Call Street's red brick buildings were painted or stuccoed decades ago, and brick takes up rain readily. With a coat of paint or stucco over it, the water the brick soaks up cannot leave through the face, so it stays in the wall and pushes the finish off, starting where the wall is wettest, near the ground.
How does water rise into the walls of Starke's oldest buildings?
Through their foundations. The early buildings along Call Street rest on continuous brick foundations or concrete slabs, and brick draws water upward the way a wick does. After June's storms soak the ground against it, a brick foundation pulls that water into the base of the wall above, leaving a damp band along the bottom of the inside wall through the summer.
What does a parapet do to the rain on an old Starke building?
A parapet is the short wall standing above a flat roof's edge, and in a storm it is wet on both faces: rain strikes the outside while water on the roof splashes the inside. Where the cap on top has cracked, that water runs down into the brick beneath. The early Call Street buildings have flat roofs with parapets, so their upper walls can show the damp first.
These questions also sit on the Starke page, next to its numbers.