Coming Back to a House That Sat Through a Storm: What's Safe and What Isn't

September 16 is a date this county knows twice over. Hurricane Ivan came ashore just west of Gulf Shores at 1:50 a.m. on September 16, 2004. Sixteen years to the day later, Hurricane Sally made landfall at Gulf Shores at 5 a.m. CDT on September 16, 2020, a Category 2 with 105 mph winds, moving slowly enough to drop 29.99 inches of rain at Orange Beach — the highest total anywhere in the storm — 29.30 inches near Fort Morgan, and 12.44 inches west of Fairhope.

Houses come out of a storm like that in two groups: the ones that took water and the ones that just sat empty. The advice for both starts in the same place, and it isn't where most people start.

On this coast the empty house is the normal case. Census figures put Orange Beach at 15,075 total housing units against 3,931 occupied by a year-round household — among the three highest for total housing units of the 22 communities Streamlined Plumbing serves. Gulf Shores runs 14,668 against 7,262. EPA's drinking-water registry lists the Orange Beach system as serving 17,796 people in a town whose resident population is 8,244.

You can see where that stock sits: the water-side pockets around Perdido Pass and Terry Cove and out onto Ono Island are largely units used a few weeks a year. That's arithmetic, not atmosphere — both clocks below start when the water stops moving, not when the storm forms, so a unit already dark through September has been running them for weeks.

The first thing to deal with is the water that's already in the pipes

Before the water heater, before the drains, before anything you can see. A system that sat unused goes bad in a specific order, and CDC and EPA have both published what that order is. Two clocks run at once.

The fast one is metals. CDC notes that corrosion may occur during long periods of low or no water use, leading to potentially high levels of lead or other metals — and for lead and copper, a "prolonged period" can be hours or days. A house that never took an inch of water still has this problem after a week away.

The slow one is bacteria. Stagnant water increases the risk of Legionella growth and spread; when water sits, hot water temperature falls into the Legionella growth range, 77°F to 113°F. A prolonged period for Legionella is weeks or months.

One line in CDC's guidance reads as though aimed at this coast: in warm climates, water in pipes that typically carry cold water may reach a temperature that allows for growth of Legionella. In September here — the average July high at the Fairhope coordinate in 2025 was 89°F — with a slab or an unconditioned crawlspace holding heat overnight, the "cold" line in an empty house is not cold.

The flush, in EPA's published order: begin nearest to where water enters the building and move toward the farthest tap, cold before hot. Then the hot side — CDC's guidance is to flush until the hot water reaches its maximum temperature, at or above 120°F at the tap, heater set to at least 140°F, keeping aerosol generation to a minimum. Point the shower head down the drain, don't stand in the steam, open a window.

Dry traps, and the smell that shows up on day three

The CDC lists dried-out sanitary sewer drain traps as a vacancy hazard, and it's the most common thing I get called about in a reopened house.

Every drain has a P-trap — a bend holding water that keeps sewer gas out of the room. Water evaporates, and two or three weeks of a hot empty house empties the guest bath, the laundry standpipe and the shower nobody uses. The fix is a cup of water down every drain, including the ones you never touch; why traps go dry in a vacant coastal unit covers the timing.

If the smell survives a day, it isn't a trap. Persistent sewage odor after refilling the traps points at a broken vent or a compromised main line — a camera job, not a bucket job, and that's sewer line repair and camera inspection.

A water heater that touched flood water is finished

"Touched flood water" is wider than beachfront. Katrina's landfall on August 29, 2005 was well to the west, and the National Weather Service still estimated storm tides of 9 to 11 feet in Baldwin County, with FEMA high-water marks north of Fairhope over 13 feet. A utility room on the Mobile Bay side can take two feet from a storm whose eye never came near it, and two feet is plenty — the controls on a tank sit near the floor.

The industry position, verbatim. AHRI: "Flood-damaged heating and cooling equipment and systems should be replaced and not repaired."

The reasoning matters, because a flooded heater often still lights and still makes hot water, which is what makes it dangerous to keep. AHRI's explanation: the insulation surrounding the unit will be contaminated and nearly impossible to disinfect; it dries slowly, corroding the tank from outside; and parts may corrode later even after cleaning. NC State Extension, citing GAMA, is blunter — flooded water heaters, gas and electric, should be replaced.

AHRI also specifies that both types have a pressure relief valve that can corrode and stick after flood exposure, and that it must be replaced too. A stuck T&P valve on a tank that "seems fine" is the failure nobody sees coming.

Two honest limits. We handle water heater replacement on electric tank and electric tankless units — including across the seasonal stock in Orange Beach — and you can see what a replacement typically runs first. If yours is gas-fired we don't make gas connections; you'll need a licensed gas fitter, and I'd rather say so now than at your door.

What if a boil-water notice covers your address?

A boil-water notice after a storm is usually not about the treatment plant. It's about pressure. EPA's mechanism: when a distribution system drops below 20 psi, that "may cause a net movement of water from outside the pipe to the inside through cracks, breaks, or joints," and backsiphonage can pull water backward through service connections. The notice exists because of what got in while it was flat.

Lifting the notice is the start of your job, not the end. Recovery steps published by state drinking-water programs:

• Unscrew every aerator and soak it in bleach solution — that mesh is where sediment and bacteria collect.
• Flush cold water five minutes per fixture, top floor down.
• Run hot water until it runs cold. Connecticut's health department quantifies this at about 15 minutes for a 40-gallon tank, 30 for anything larger.
• Throw out every water filter: refrigerator, faucet-mount, under-sink, whole-house. They aren't designed to remove the bacteria that may be present.
• Regenerate the softener. Dump 24 hours of ice, then three more batches.

One check before you wait for a notice: you may not be on a system that issues one. Point Clear is one of only 10 of the 22 communities Streamlined Plumbing serves with no registered municipal community water system (private wells) — so are Bon Secour, Fort Morgan, Lillian and Magnolia Springs. On a well there's no utility to lose pressure, no notice to lift and no all-clear; the clock is a health-department test result. The house-side work afterwards is identical either way.

Corroded aerators and angle stops that won't close are common on older fixtures here; that's ordinary faucet and fixture repair and it's quick.

Wells and septic: read this, then call someone who isn't me

We don't service wells or well pumps, and we don't pump septic tanks. Both come up constantly after a storm — here's the accurate version and the right phone call.

Wells. Alabama Department of Public Health, issued for Hurricane Sally: private wells covered by flood water should be assumed contaminated — do not drink from the well or give it to animals until it has been tested. Testing runs through your county health department, which sends an environmentalist to collect a sample. CDC says wells should be disinfected by a well or pump contractor. And from EPA, the warning most articles skip: because of the extensive flood area and the speed and direction of ground water flow, your well may not be a safe source for many months after the flood. One clean test is not a permanent answer.

Septic. EPA's own FAQ asks and answers the question people ask me first:

"Do I pump my tank during flooded or saturated drainfield conditions? No! At best, pumping the tank is only a temporary solution. Under worst conditions, pumping it out could cause the tank to try to float out of the ground and may damage the inlet and outlet pipes."

EPA's recommendation is to reduce water use drastically and wait for the ground to drain. They also describe a mechanism worth knowing: flooding lifts the floating crust of fats and grease inside the tank, and that scum can partially plug the outlet tee — so if a septic system backs up, check the tank for outlet blockage first.

Our work begins here. If your outside cleanout is not full while drains back up inside, the blockage is between the house and the tank, not in it — a camera inspection and usually hydro jetting or drain cleaning. A full cleanout points at the tank: a septic contractor's call.

The order, start to finish

1. Look before you open anything — standing water, a wet heater, a soft floor.
2. Flush cold, nearest fixture to farthest, then hot until it runs hot. Refill every trap.
3. Under a boil-water notice, do the aerator, filter, ice and softener steps.
4. Wet water heater means replace, not repair. Flooded well, don't drink it. Backed-up septic, check the cleanout before anyone pumps anything.

What to expect on a service call covers how we diagnose before quoting. We answer around the clock at (251) 423-7654 — Brandon Byrd, Alabama Master Plumber MP-4462. The pre-storm side is the plumbing shutdown order before you evacuate.

Sources. NWS Mobile event pages for Hurricanes Sally, Ivan and Katrina (weather.gov/mob). CDC, "Guidance for Building Water Systems" and Legionella control toolkit. EPA: "Maintaining or Restoring Water Quality in Buildings with Low or No Use"; "Loss of Pressure in Drinking Water Systems"; "Septic Systems — What to Do after the Flood." AHRI, "Floods and HVACR Equipment." NC State Extension, "How to Salvage Flood-Damaged Appliances," citing GAMA. ADPH well water program. Connecticut DPH boil-water recovery guidance. Housing and occupancy from Census ACS 2023 5-year estimates at place level; water-system registrations from EPA SDWIS. July 2025 temperature from ERA5-Land daily reanalysis via the Open-Meteo archive at the Fairhope coordinate — a single calendar year, not a climate normal.