Storm water removal, emergency tarping and board-up, drying and cleanup for Cape Coral and Lee County after wind and rain damage.
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Hurricane and storm damage restoration covers the water side of a storm: getting rain, surge and canal water out of the building, drying what stayed, and keeping the weather out with tarping or board-up until a licensed trade makes the permanent repair. Cape Coral Water Damage Restoration works across Cape Coral and Lee County after storms, with calls answered 24/7.
Hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, and the wet season that overlaps it runs from about May 25 to about October 10. Most storm calls in Cape Coral are not about a roof that left the house. They are about rain that found a way in: a lifted edge of roofing, a soffit, a window seal, a door threshold, or a vent, and then a ceiling, an attic and a wall that got wet and were left that way while everyone dealt with more urgent things.
Hurricane Ian came ashore in September 2022 and changed how this part of Lee County thinks about storm water. The city shut its potable water system down afterward when a pipeline was damaged, and nearly four years on, some homes across the water in the Pine Island communities are still not back together. The lesson most owners took from it was about sequence: water out and drying started early, documentation kept from the first day, and permanent repairs scheduled once the building was dry.
What a crew does after a storm is narrow on purpose. Standing water is removed, soaked porous material is taken out, the building is dried with readings to prove it, and openings are tarped or boarded to stop the next rain band. Roof replacement, structural repair and rebuilding are licensed contractor work and come later, which is the part of the timeline most people underestimate.
Do not enter a building with a sagging ceiling, a visibly damaged roof structure or standing water around electrical equipment. After a storm, assume outside water is contaminated and keep children and pets out of it. Do not climb onto a wet roof to put a tarp on it yourself, and stay clear of downed lines, even ones that look dead. If the house was closed up and powerless for days and smells strongly musty, open it up from the doorway and let someone assess it before you start pulling out materials.
The first visit establishes where water came in and whether it is still coming in. Nothing dries while a roof or an opening is still letting rain through, so stopping the entry comes before the drying plan. The crew also notes whether water came from above, from outside at ground level, or both, because that changes the category and the cleanup.
Tarping over a damaged roof section and boarding a broken window or a failed door are emergency measures. They are there to keep the next rain band out and the building secure while permanent repairs are arranged. They are not roof repair, and a crew will say so plainly, because treating a tarp as the fix is how a wet attic becomes a mold job.
Water is extracted from floors, garages and ground-floor rooms. Saturated attic insulation, carpet pad, and drywall that took outside water are removed rather than dried, since storm water from the ground is treated as contaminated. Everything that goes out is photographed and listed first.
Air movers and dehumidifiers run with moisture readings logged each visit. After a major storm this stage is usually the one waiting on utility power, so the plan is built around what is actually available: extraction and removal now, metered drying as soon as the equipment can run. Dense materials such as tile over a slab and framing take the longest.
You end up with photographs, dated readings, and a list of what was removed, which is what both an insurer and the next contractor will ask for. Roofing, drywall, flooring and framing repairs generally fall under Florida contractor licensing through DBPR, and any contractor's license can be looked up there. Before rebuilding in a flood zone, ask the city or county first.
Make sure the building is safe to enter, then stop water from coming in further and photograph everything before you move it. Treat any water that came in from outside as contaminated. Get wet porous material out, keep a list of what you discard, and contact your insurer early.
Work from the outside in. Look at the roof line, soffits, windows and doors from the ground, then check the attic for wet insulation and the ceilings for stains. Look at the garage slab and the lower few inches of walls and cabinet kicks for a water line, mud or silt, because ground-level water leaves a mark that tells a crew how high it got.
Generally a standard policy responds to wind-driven rain that enters through storm-created openings, and generally excludes flood, meaning surface water and storm surge. Flood is a separate policy through FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program or a private insurer. Your policy and your insurer decide, so ask your carrier.
That split is why documenting where the water came from matters so much after a storm. A wet ceiling under a damaged roof and a wet floor from water that came in the garage door are two different claims, and in many houses both happened in the same night. Photographs of the water line, of the opening, and of the attic go a long way toward keeping them straight.
Keep your own file: dated photographs, the moisture readings, the list of material removed and any receipts. Free help with a property insurance claim is available from the Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Consumer Services, and the insurance claims guide explains the general pattern without pretending to know your policy.
How much of the building got wet, whether the water came from above or from outside at ground level, the materials involved, how long the house sat wet, how many days of equipment are needed, and whether tarping or board-up is part of it. The scope and price are explained before work starts.
Storm jobs spread out more than plumbing jobs, and that is what usually moves the number. One opening in a roof can wet an attic, two ceilings and the walls under them, so the work is counted in rooms rather than in square feet of visible stain. Removing and replacing saturated attic insulation is its own line of work, and a contaminated ground-level loss adds removal and disposal that a clean-water loss does not.
Yes. Tarping damaged roof sections and boarding broken windows or doors are emergency measures to keep rain out and the building secure. They are temporary by design, they are not roof repair, and permanent roofing or structural work goes to a licensed contractor you hire separately.
A tarp earns its keep in the days after a storm, when another rain band can do more damage than the first one did. It also lets drying start, which cannot happen in a building that is still taking on water. What a tarp does not do is make the attic dry or the roof sound, and nothing underneath it should be closed up on the assumption that it did.
They can. Under the National Flood Insurance Program, a structure in a Special Flood Hazard Area whose repair cost equals or exceeds 50 percent of the structure's value must be brought into full compliance with current flood-damage-prevention rules. In Cape Coral the city, not the owner or a contractor, makes that determination.
A building already above the required freeboard elevation with proper flood openings can usually be repaired without triggering the rule, and an elevation certificate is how that gets shown. Certificates have been required since 1991, so a house from the city's earlier decades may not have one. Lee County publishes the same rule for unincorporated areas.
The practical advice is short: ask the city or county before you rebuild, not after. The 50 percent rule guide explains how the determination fits into a repair timeline, and rules do change, so confirm the current version with the city for your own address.
The most common storm call here and the easiest to underestimate. Rain pushed sideways gets past roofing edges, ridges, soffits, window seals and door thresholds that handle vertical rain without complaint. The volume is often small and the path long, so the wet drywall shows up in a room nowhere near the opening. Mapping matters more than extraction on these jobs.
Lifted or missing roofing, a damaged vent or a failed flashing lets water into the attic, where it soaks insulation and comes through the ceiling. The crew tarps, removes the wet insulation and ceiling material that cannot be dried, and dries the framing and the rooms below. The roof itself goes to a roofer, and roof leak water damage covers the interior work in more detail.
Water that came in at ground level from a canal, the river or the street is Category 3 and handled as contaminated, with porous material removed rather than dried. It is also the type of loss a standard homeowners policy generally excludes, with flood covered separately. See storm surge and flood cleanup for how those jobs run.
Peak risk here is a narrow window. The wet season's heaviest weeks run from mid-September into early October, which is the same stretch that carries the most tropical-system risk, and the wet season closes out around October 10 while hurricane season runs on to November 30. Houses that got through August untouched still have the riskiest part of the calendar ahead of them, and that is the gap most owners are surprised by.
Cape Coral sits on a peninsula of canals across the Caloosahatchee from Fort Myers, and storm water here can arrive from more than one direction: rain from above, canal and river water rising at ground level, and surge pushing up from the Gulf. Flood-risk researchers have reported that more properties here are at risk of flooding than in any other Florida city, which is worth knowing about your own address before a storm rather than during one.
Across the water the recovery pattern is different again. Island and Pine Island addresses depend on bridges and causeways that storms have damaged and closed in the past, which delays everything, and some homes in those communities took years to come back together. If you are in Fort Myers Beach or Matlacha, access is part of the plan, not an afterthought.
If it's an emergency, call now. For non-urgent hurricane and storm damage restoration, send the form and we'll call you back.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
Removal, cleaning and drying after canal, river or surge water enters a Cape Coral home, condo or business.
Interior cleanup and drying after a roof leak, plus emergency tarping, for Cape Coral and Lee County homes and condos.
Standing water pulled out of floors, garages and ground-floor rooms around the clock, then drying with measured readings.
Extraction, moisture mapping, structural drying and cleanup for Cape Coral and Lee County homes, condos and small businesses.
Treat water that came from outside as contaminated.
For a building in the mapped special flood hazard area, the National Flood Insurance Program requires that repairs or improvements costing at least 50 percent of the structure's value bring the whole building into compliance with current flood rules.
The regional wet season typically runs from about the last week of May to early October, with near-daily afternoon thunderstorms, and hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30.
Yes, and the first two stages are the ones that matter most. Standing water can be extracted and soaked porous material can be removed without utility power, and tarping and board-up do not need it either. Metered drying needs power for air movers and dehumidifiers, so it starts when utility power returns or a generator with enough capacity is available.
Usually yes, and the stain is the least important part of it. Water that came through a roof has passed through attic insulation and across framing on its way to that ceiling, and those materials hold moisture long after the surface looks dry. A moisture reading in the attic and in the wall below tells you whether it is a paint job or a drying job.
No. Tarping and board-up are the emergency measures a crew provides, and roof replacement goes to a licensed roofing contractor you hire. The same applies to drywall, flooring and framing repair after the structure is dry. Any contractor's license can be looked up through DBPR before you sign anything.
Open it up and check the ceilings, the attic and the lower few inches of walls before anything else. A closed, warm building with a small amount of water in it is the situation where growth gets a head start, so an assessment usually comes before any extraction. Take photographs before you move or discard anything.
Do not leave water standing while you wait. Photograph everything thoroughly, keep damaged material where it can be inspected if that is practical, write down what you removed and when, and tell your insurer what you are doing. Policies generally expect an owner to limit further damage, and your insurer can tell you what they want preserved.