Emergency
Storm Surge & Tidal Flooding West Palm Beach, 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.
Say where the water came from when you call
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
How does damp garage air reach the corridors of a West Palm Beach tower?
Through the stairwells and elevator shafts. Nearly two in five West Palm Beach homes are in buildings of ten or more units. Where a tower sits over an open-air parking level and a stair door is propped or a shaft opens to the garage, humid air from the parking level rises through it into the cooled floors above and leaves its water on the corridor's cold glass, tile and walls.
What is inside the walls of an El Cid house in West Palm Beach?
Usually wood frame or clay tile, finished with stucco, the district's National Register nomination says. Clay tile here means hollow fired-clay blocks, and where the stucco over them cracks, rain runs into the open cells and pools there. Because the August air is nearly as wet as the wall, that water leaves very slowly, keeping the inside face of the wall damp long after a storm.
Why does a crack in the stucco matter more on a frame house in El Cid?
Because the stucco is the wall's only rain shield. On a wood frame house finished in stucco, a crack lets water reach the lath and the framing behind it, and wood holds that water rather than shedding it. In the humid months it has little chance to leave, so a hairline crack left open through August can keep the framing wet into the fall.
For the figures behind these answers, see West Palm Beach.