Water is in the house. Here is the order to do things.

The first hours after a flood feel chaotic, and the instinct is to start hauling and mopping. Resist it for ten minutes. There is an order that protects people first, protects the insurance claim second, and protects the house third — and nearly everything on this list is easier in the first hours than it will ever be again.

Step 1: Make the house safe to be in

Electricity and water do not mix. If water has reached wall outlets, power strips, appliances or the breaker panel, do not walk into it and do not touch switches with wet hands. If you can reach the main breaker from a dry spot and shut power to the flooded areas, do that. If you cannot, stay out and call an electrician or the utility. Smell gas? Leave the house and call 911 or the gas company from a neighbor's yard.

Look up before you look down: water pooled in a ceiling can bring the drywall down. Keep children and pets completely out of flooded rooms — flood water in Hollywood streets and canals should be treated as contaminated, full stop. Boots and gloves on before your feet and hands go anywhere near it. If anyone in the household has open cuts, they stay out of the water entirely.

Step 2: Stop the water you control

Rising street water you cannot stop, but make sure the house is not adding to its own problem. Turn off the main water supply — on most Hollywood homes the shutoff is by the meter at the street or where the line enters the house — so a storm-stressed pipe or a floated appliance line does not quietly pump clean water into the flood. Switch off the water heater at its breaker. If a toilet or tub is backing up as drains surge, do not keep flushing or running water anywhere in the house; every gallon you send down competes with a system that is already overwhelmed.

Step 3: Photograph everything before you move anything

This is the step people skip and regret for a year. Walk the house with your phone, in daylight if you can wait for it, and record a slow video of every room. Get close-ups of the water line on walls and furniture — that tide mark is evidence of depth, and depth drives everything in a flood claim. Photograph damaged items where they sit, serial numbers on appliances and electronics, and the street outside showing where the water came from. Then get those files out of the house digitally: send them to yourself, a family member, or cloud storage. Do the same for any item you are about to throw away during cleanup — photograph it first, in place, every time.

Write down times while they are fresh: when the water started coming in, when it peaked, when it receded. Insurers, FEMA assistance programs and your own memory all run better on a timeline.

Step 4: Rescue in the right order

With the house safe and documented, move things in this order: people items first (medicines, documents, photos, laptops — anything irreplaceable), then the things water destroys fastest (upholstered furniture legs can wait; the cardboard box of family papers on the floor cannot), then rugs and soft goods out to a driveway where they stop wicking moisture into the rooms. Open windows and doors only if the air outside is drier than inside and the rain has genuinely stopped — in the middle of a Florida downpour, open windows just invite the storm in. If the water is clean-ish rainwater and shallow, a wet vacuum and buckets genuinely help in this window; if it came off the street or smells of sewage, keep contact minimal and treat everything it touched as contaminated.

A small, steady move: lift wooden furniture onto blocks, bricks or even kitchen pots. Hours of standing in an inch of water will ruin finishes and swell joints; twenty minutes of lifting can save pieces that survived the flood itself.

Also use this window to line up what comes next, calmly: a place for wet debris outside that is not against the house, the phone numbers you will need in one place, and a realistic idea of who is doing what — who watches the kids, who handles the insurance call, who starts the wet vacuum. Floods punish improvisation; a five-minute division of labor in hour one saves an hour of crossed wires later. If an elderly neighbor or a relative nearby lives alone in a low house, this is also the hour to check on them, once your own house is safe.

Step 5: Make the calls

Call your insurer and, if you carry one, your flood policy carrier, and open the claim while the water is still in the house — the claim number starts the paper trail that your photos feed into. If you rent, call the landlord now, not tomorrow. Then decide honestly about scale: one shallow room on tile is one thing; water in several rooms, water over the baseboards, soaked drywall, or any hint of sewage means it is time to bring in professional help — you can contact the Water Damage Hollywood Florida team around the clock, and if you are reading this in the middle of the event, that call can happen before the water even recedes, so extraction starts the moment it safely can.

What never to do

Never turn on ceiling fixtures or run appliances standing in water.
Never use a household vacuum or extension cords in standing water.
Never tear out walls or throw away damaged goods before photographing them.
Never crank the air conditioning to "dry the house" if the ductwork or air handler took water — you can spread contamination through the system. Fans and open airflow are fine once the water is out; the full drying logic is in the cleanup guide.
Never assume a room that looks dry is dry. Baseboards and wall cavities hold water long after the floor shines.

The first hours are about safety, evidence and stopping the bleeding. The days after are about the methodical part — extraction, muck-out, measured drying and sanitizing. Neither phase rewards panic; both reward a list followed in order.

Sources: Ready.gov flood safety guidance; FEMA homeowner flood recovery publications; American Red Cross flood safety checklist. General information only.