Storm Water Damage in the Pacific Northwest: First Steps

Pacific Northwest storms have a specific personality. They aren't the dramatic single-event hurricanes that the Gulf Coast deals with. They're long, wet, sideways-blowing affairs that find every weakness in your home over the course of 48 to 72 hours.

If you live anywhere from Bellingham to Olympia, you've watched it happen — wind drives rain into surfaces that normally never see direct water, atmospheric rivers dump weeks of rainfall in a couple of days, the ground saturates, and suddenly water is showing up in places that have been dry for decades.

Here's the first-hour playbook for the most common storm-driven water damage we see in PNW homes.

Wind-driven rain through windows or siding

The hallmark of a PNW windstorm. Rain coming in sideways at 40+ mph finds every gap in window seals, siding overlaps, vent penetrations, and trim that hasn't been recaulked in a while. You'll often see:

• Wet drywall or staining on the wall below a window (not at the window — water tracks down inside the wall cavity)
• Dark patches on the ceiling near exterior walls
• Water dripping from light fixtures or outlets on exterior walls

First steps: Cut power to any wet outlets or fixtures at the breaker before touching anything. Soak up surface water. Take photos of where water is appearing — these are critical for the insurance claim. If it's still actively coming in, towels at the base of the affected wall help contain the spread.

Don't: Open the wall yourself trying to find the leak. The path water takes inside a wall is rarely intuitive — what looks like the entry point usually isn't. Document what you see, contain the visible water, and let the mitigation crew open the wall after the storm passes.

Roof leaks from blown-off shingles or flashing failures

Big windstorms expose every marginal roof in the region. You may not realize you have shingle damage until water is dripping from a ceiling fixture downstairs.

First steps: Move valuables out from under the active drip. Set up buckets, towels, plastic sheeting if you have it. Take ceiling photos before the spread gets worse. If the drip is concentrated, you can sometimes poke a small hole through the ceiling at the lowest point to channel water into a single controlled drip — this counterintuitive move can save the rest of the ceiling from collapsing under accumulated weight.

Don't: Try to get on the roof during the storm. Sliding off a wet, windy roof is one of the most common ER visits during PNW weather events. Wait for the storm to pass, then either call a roofer for emergency tarping or have the mitigation crew tarp the roof as part of the initial response.

Basement or crawl space flooding

Saturated ground + heavy rain + low spots in your yard = water finding its way into basements and crawl spaces. Common entry points: cracks in foundation walls, failed sump pumps, drains that have backed up under hydraulic pressure.

First steps: If water is rising, kill power to the basement at the breaker before stepping into it. Identify and move what you can (boxes off the floor, etc.) from above the water line. Check the sump pump — if it's not running, that's likely your problem; if it's running but losing the battle, you need a second pump or professional extraction.

Don't: Wade into standing basement water with power on. Don't assume the sump pump is fine just because you can hear it running — they fail in ways that aren't always obvious.

Sewer or sump backup

Heavy rain overloads municipal sewer systems and can push contaminated water backwards into homes through basement floor drains, toilets, or laundry standpipes. This is a Category 3 ("black water") situation — the water contains pathogens and requires professional remediation. It's not a mop-it-up situation.

First steps: Get out of the area. Don't touch anything that's contacted the water without gloves. Don't run drains or flush toilets — that adds to the backup. Take photos from a safe distance. Call us — sewer backup remediation requires biohazard containment, PPE, and antimicrobial protocols that household cleaners don't provide.

Tree falls on the house

Less common than wind/rain damage but more dramatic. If a tree (or large branch) has compromised the roof or wall:

• Get everyone out of any room directly under or behind the impact
• Cut power if anything looks like it might have hit a wire
• Do NOT try to move the tree or pull branches off the house — structural damage may be worse than it looks, and pulling on the tree can collapse the impacted section
• Take photos from a safe distance
• Call your insurance company AND a mitigation crew. The tree itself usually gets removed by a tree service or arborist; the building damage is the restoration scope.

What to expect when you call us during a storm event

PNW windstorms generate hundreds of calls across the region in a single night. Every legitimate restoration company gets overwhelmed. A few things to know:

• We prioritize active damage — water still spreading, electrical hazards, anyone displaced from their home — over jobs that can wait a few hours without getting worse.
• We may dispatch a containment-only initial visit during the active event (extract standing water, tarp the source, set up basic drying) and return for the full mitigation scope once the weather breaks.
• Mutual aid: in a major storm event, we sometimes route overflow to trusted partner companies if we're at capacity. We'll only refer you to crews we'd hire ourselves.

Before the next storm

Most of what causes storm damage is preventable, or at least manageable, with a few off-season tasks:

• Clean gutters and downspouts in October and again in February
• Check that downspouts discharge at least 4 feet away from the foundation
• Replace failing window and door caulking before the rainy season
• Test your sump pump (and any backup battery) annually
• Walk your roof in dry weather and look for lifted, curled, or missing shingles
• Trim back tree branches within 10 feet of the house
• Know where your water main shutoff is — and make sure it actually turns

None of these are dramatic. All of them prevent the kind of storm-event call we get at 2am on a Tuesday in February. Your future self will thank you.