Flood Protection!

Peo­ple often asso­ciate spring, with the high­est risk of floods.  And real­is­ti­cal­ly it is a time of high vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.  But the trend over the past 2 decades, of increas­ing­ly severe weath­er sys­tems dur­ing all 4 sea­sons, has made the risk of Flood a con­tin­u­ous poten­tial prob­lem.   Con­se­quent­ly, this is a great time for indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties to under­stand their risk for flood­ing and take pre­cau­tions to pro­tect their fam­i­lies and prop­er­ty in the event of flood­ing.

Floods are one of the most com­mon haz­ards in North Amer­i­ca, but not all Floods are alike.  We have seen dra­mat­ic media cov­er­age of Flood scenes from the Red Riv­er in Man­i­to­ba etc.  And a flash flood of a major riv­er may have dif­fer­ent reper­cus­sion than a dri­ving rain, what­ev­er the cause,  dev­as­tat­ing dam­age to prop­er­ty and build­ings can be the result.  A com­mon cause of flood in urban cen­ters can be a water main break, or poor­ly designed eaves trough sys­tems.

There are some sim­ple steps that can be tak­en to reduce the risks of all types of floods.  If you live on or near a flood plain, or major riv­er, mon­i­tor the gov­ern­ment weath­er ser­vice that pre­dicts floods and rates dan­ger lev­els

Heavy rains can turn a lazy riv­er or stream into a rag­ing tor­rent of water.  Exer­cise extreme cau­tion around river­banks and shore­lines dur­ing spring run-off, and severe weath­er sys­tems.  Keep chil­dren well way from water­ways.

For the aver­age home own­er, not hav­ing your base­ment flood­ed in the past, does not make you immune to a future prob­lem.

Here are some sim­ple flood pro­tec­tion tips:

Insure your gut­ters (eaves troughs) are in good con­di­tion and clear of debris, such as leaves.  Direct the eaves trough pipe well away from your foun­da­tion.

Make sure that the land­scape around your build­ing allows water to drain away from the build­ing, prop­er grad­ing is essen­tial to not over tax your weep­ing drains.

If you rely on a sump pump in your base­ment, install an alarm that alerts you in the event of a pump fail­ure and con­sid­er a bat­tery back­up for the pump.  It’s not unusu­al to have a pow­er fail­ure dur­ing severe storms, when you need your pump work­ing most!

Add a flood sen­sor to your Alarm Sys­tem.   A flood sen­sor can alert you to a faulty sump pump, a bro­ken water pipe, an over­flow­ing wash­ing machine etc.  An ear­ly warn­ing can save you thou­sands of $’s!

Add a low tem­per­a­ture sen­sor to your Secu­ri­ty Alarm Sys­tem. Many floods are caused by burst pipes that were frozen.   A low tem­per­a­ture sen­sor can alert you to falling tem­per­a­tures in your build­ing before you have a prob­lem.

Note:  many insur­ance com­pa­nies have lim­it­ed or no cov­er­age for flood dam­age, or very high deductibles. Check your insur­ance pol­i­cy and dis­cuss your options with your bro­ker.

Take a lit­tle time to pre­pare now, it can save you a great deal of aggra­va­tion in the future.