After Houston’s tropical systems and squall lines, the first 24 hours matter most. Wet drywall and insulation grow mold within 48 hours. We start with emergency mitigation — tarping compromised roofs, boarding broken windows, extracting standing water — then move into structural drying with desiccant dehumidifiers and air movers sized to the affected volume.
We document everything for your carrier from the moment we arrive. If the loss involves wind versus flood (different policies), we capture evidence that supports the correct claim path.
Wind or flood? The answer decides which policy pays
This is the single most consequential question on a Texas storm claim, and the evidence for it disappears fast.
- Wind-driven rain entering through a wind-created opening (a lifted shingle, a failed roof seam, a broken window) is generally a covered peril under a standard homeowners policy.
- Rising surface water entering the structure is flood, which homeowners policies exclude and which requires NFIP or private flood coverage.
A house can take both in the same storm, and carriers routinely dispute where one ends and the other begins. What settles it is documentation captured before anything is tarped, cleaned, or repaired: the water line on the exterior versus the interior, the direction of staining on walls and ceilings, and photographs of the actual roof or window opening.
If a roofer inspects, get the written statement tying the damage to a specific weather event and date. In our experience it is the single most useful document on a wind claim, and it is much harder to obtain three weeks later.
What to do in the first hours
- Stay out of any room with a sagging ceiling. Water pooling above drywall is heavy and it comes down all at once.
- Photograph the exterior and the interior before mitigation starts, including the opening the water came through.
- Call for emergency tarping and board-up. Leaving an opening exposed through the next rain band converts one claim into a bigger one, and every policy has a duty to prevent further damage.
- Do not throw anything away yet. Damaged contents are evidence until the adjuster has seen them or you have photographed them thoroughly.
Freeze events count as storms too
The February 2021 freeze is the reference event, but a hard Texas freeze bursts hose bibs and attic supply lines on a smaller scale most winters. Those losses are not flood and not wind. They are sudden and accidental water damage, covered under a standard homeowners policy, and they behave like the water damage jobs we run year-round.
Where we work
Emergency board-up and tarping same-day, dispatched from our Katy staging area, 24/7, across Katy, Fulshear, Cinco Ranch, Richmond, Sugar Land, Cypress, and Houston.