Harvey Got Me.

[tdd4570]

Harvey got me. I had about 10" of water in the house. It is cleaned out and drying.

I also had about 10" in the safe. I had a couple of wood stocks that are wet and swelled.

What is the best way to save them? How do I dry them out without messing them up too bad?

Then, what do I do to the safe? Cut the carpet out and remove the wood floor and shelves?

Thanks for the advice.

Dave

[DerekP Houston]

oh man sorry to hear that. Haven't been back in 10 days myself I hope we didn't get hit from the reservoir releases. I'd call the safe manufacturer and see if you have some warranty or their recommendations.

[dbosman]

Do you trust you skills to take it all the way apart?

[LUCKYDAWG13]

FWIW I had a house fire 12 years ago and had water damage to a few rifles rust on them anyway they were Thompson Center Hawken rifles
I gave T/C a call they told me to send them in and i did I got them back looking like new with a note that said that I had enough thing to worry about
that there was no Charge that it was on us oh my dad bought the rifles in 1975 and i told them that too

[tdd4570]

DerekP Hope your place is dry when you get home.

dbosman No problem taking them completely apart and reassembling. I have two Rugers that I'm concerned about (No 1, Red Label) and a Remington 541 T-HB. Metalwork is fine. Stocks swelled a little.

They are currently at a friends house drying out.

Give me some recommendations.

Thanks
Dave

[tdd4570]

Just got off the phone with Ruger and they offered credit toward replacement. I said I would just keep what I have.

Their suggestion was to pull the pads and let them dry slowly.

[AggieEE]

tdd4570, check with some of the flood remediation companies. I know a library got flooded someplace with a lot of rare books and they used freeze drying to save the books. This might work for the stocks. Good luck brother. Compared to whats going to happen to Florida we got off easy. If you know somebody in Florida I hope they are running now cause this one is going to be real ugly.

[tdd4570]

AggieEE

I'll check into that.

In the Houston area we had a major rain event (800 year or 1000 year) depending on who you listen to.
I got off real easy compared to a lot of people.
Spring Creek which runs 1/2 mile behind my house went from 110' to 140.88' in about 24 hours. It was that last .88' that got me.

It looks like Florida is going to have a wind event. I'm sure they will have a lot of wind damage, but no where near as much flood damage. I will be praying for them.

[huntrick64]

I'm sorry to hear about this. I'm assuming that you do not have flood insurance. I also do not see how your regular homeowner's policy is going to help you unless your guns are scheduled, and even then it might exclude flood.

The biggest problem with water damage is the amount of time the item was exposed to water, AND the amount of time it was exposed to air, while it was still wet (aka mold). The guns would have to be looked at on a case-by-case basis to determine what should be done to each gun to get them back to where they were before the flood, but it should be fairly straight forward. I would talk to the manufacturer of the safe and see what you could do yourself as far as replacing the fire insulation and the carpet. Most of these are simply a "drywall" type insulation and commercial carpet. I have a Liberty safe and I replaced all of the carpet with a very high quality carpet from Lowes for a minimal cost. I used contact cement to glue it to the fireboard inside. The fireboard looked like multiple sheets of 5/8" drywall to me. Safe manufacture could tell you for sure. Your fire seal around the door should still be good.

I hope this helps and good luck cleaning everything.

[flint45]

With the wood be careful, not out in the sun put in a warm not hot dry place if water was dirty i.e. bacteria dip in a mild bleach solution or use Clorox disinfectant wipes to keep mold in check.

[MyFlatline]

Dave , hate to hear you go flooded so bad out there. I've talked to a bunch of Texans that say it was a fluke. Your right, us Floridians are gonna get a wind whipped but I don't see near the level of flooding. I'm 26' above flood, I worry about losing my roof and having everything ruined from the rain. I'll know more on Monday..

[woodbutcher]

Hi tdd4570.If the West coast of Florida gets the 12 foot storm surge They WILL be in deep
doodoo as the West coast is much closed to sea level than the East coast.And that mess just might make Huston look like the Sahara Desert.And I don`t mean to try and make light of Huston`s disaterous flooding and loss of life.In the Citrus County(Crystal River area)every thing West of the hiway to the Gulf of Mexico is a flood plain area and when I worked there from 90 to 93 there were some high dollar homes built there.NO flood insurance available at any cost from any company.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[DerekP Houston]

Apparently ol' Florida took a line from Texas, saw Harvey hit us and went "Hold my beer and watch this ****"!

[MyFlatline]

Hi tdd4570.If the West coast of Florida gets the 12 foot storm surge They WILL be in deep
doodoo as the West coast is much closed to sea level than the East coast.And that mess just might make Huston look like the Sahara Desert.And I don`t mean to try and make light of Huston`s disaterous flooding and loss of life.In the Citrus County(Crystal River area)every thing West of the hiway to the Gulf of Mexico is a flood plain area and when I worked there from 90 to 93 there were some high dollar homes built there.NO flood insurance available at any cost from any company.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

Hey Leo, I been here 55 years, yep it's low. That little storm last September brought in over 2 feet of water to the main hwy US 19. This is gonna be ugly.

[Tokarev]

If stocks are anything like hardwood floors, just let them dry slowly outside of direct sunlight. They should be fine. My aunt got flooded back in the 80's and her hardwood floor swelled and domed. They could not even step inside for about a week until the floor just laid itself flat and looked the same as before.

[DerekP Houston]

I'll add my wooden block cutting board was similar. Soaked up so much water it was bowed up ~3" in the middle and completely unusable. I thought it was trashed and left it alone. After it dried out it's perfectly flat and usable again. Best of luck with your recovery methods.

[LAGS]

My Girlfriend told family members in Florida to be sure that they Wrap their firearms (and anything else like photo albums ) in plastic Trash bags before they are forced to evacuate.
Better yet, seal them in the Bags and seal them with their Food Vacume sealer.
They make long Rolls of the food sealer Bags and you cut them and make bags to whatever length you need.

[Wayne Smith]

Since they are already wet take off all metal and let them dry slowly. You should have no cracks or damage except the finish. You may need to refinish the wood. Water under the finish typically cracks hard finishes, but oil finishes are less sensitive to movement.

In the meantime protect the metal from humidity. Spray of oil or RIG will work well to do this. If you need to refinish the wood and want an oil finish PM me, and there are several ways to refinish. There is a stickie of how to finish with a high polish, which I don't like. I like a soft oil finish that is not reflective.

[woodbutcher]

Hi Myflatline.I worked at Gulf Coast Ford while I was there.Pretty good bunch of folks to work with at that time.Good fishing there too.Homasassa Springs is apt to take a bad hit from this too.Their glass bottom boat rides were a great way to kill an afternoon too.The catfish hotel is a hoot.
Good luck.have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[huntrick64]

Kind of deviating a little from OP, but not that far. I mentioned in an earlier post that if you did NOT have a flood policy you probably would not have coverage for your firearms that were damaged by flood.

I am an independent insurance agent in Oklahoma and was curious as to what the case would be IF you had your guns "Scheduled" on your homeowners policy. When you schedule something (like firearms, jewelry, silverware, etc.) the coverage is determined by that particular form not just the original homeowners form. A case in point is with jewelry; If you had a particular ring scheduled and you lost a diamond in that ring, that stone would be covered. Keep in mind that insurance companies write policies based on "approved" forms and some companies' forms could be different.

I contacted one of my largest carriers and asked them if flood was excluded when firearms were scheduled. It is NOT on their form. I tell you this because if in fact you did have them scheduled, you might want to check with your agent and not assume they had no coverage for flood. If they were not scheduled, I would be fairly sure they would not be covered unless you had a flood policy.