How to get a Friendswood area home ready for hurricane season and clean up safely afterward, using the city's own flood guidance and the rain records Harvey left behind.
Friendswood knows heavy rain. During Hurricane Harvey a gauge in the city collected 56.00 inches of rain in a week, and the National Weather Service says the highest totals in its forecast area fell around Friendswood. Storm season shapes how homes here are kept.
This guide is about the parts of storm season a household and a house cleaner can handle: getting ready, keeping records, clearing debris the right way, and the light cleaning that follows once a home is dry. Flood repair itself is a job for restoration professionals.
The City of Friendswood describes two sources of flooding: storm surge from Galveston Bay and overflow from its four major creeks. It notes that heavy rainstorms cause most of the flood damage and that the flat land slows drainage. Clear Creek also forms the line between the Harris County and Galveston County parts of the city.
Tropical weather brings more than rain. The city lists heavy rain and inland flooding, strong winds and tornadoes among the threats a tropical system can carry. Harvey showed how wide the rain can spread: gauges a few miles south of League City recorded 52.87 and 51.62 inches, and a gauge east-northeast of Pearland recorded 39.66 inches over the same week.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30. The National Hurricane Center puts the peak around September 10, with most activity from mid August to mid October. Harvey itself struck at the end of August.
Those dates make June the natural month to prepare and late summer the time to stay ready. A plan visit that lands during a storm watch should simply be moved; no cleaning is worth a drive in bad weather.
The City of Friendswood reminds residents that homeowner's policies do not cover flooding and that a new flood policy typically takes up to 30 days to take effect. It also asks residents to keep a photo inventory of household items. A tidy home makes that inventory far easier: clear rooms photograph well, and you can see what you own.
Indoors, move valuables, papers and electronics off the floor and away from exterior doors. Keep a bin of cleanup basics ready: heavy trash bags, gloves, paper towels, a mop and bucket, and fresh batteries for a flashlight.
If floodwater came into the home, that water is not a house cleaning job. Wet drywall, soaked carpet, insulation and anything that sat in floodwater need a restoration contractor, and the house needs to dry out properly before regular cleaning makes sense. A house cleaner will not do that work.
What a cleaner can help with is the home that stayed dry but took a beating from wind and mess: tracked-in mud, leaves blown through doors, and the dust that settles while a house sits closed up through a long power outage. Once repairs are done in a flooded home, a One-Time Deep Clean or, for an emptied home, a Moving Clean clears the construction dust left on baseboards, vents and fixtures.
When hiring repair crews, use the Texas Attorney General advice the city shared after Harvey: written estimates from at least three contractors, proof of general liability insurance and workers' compensation, and no more than half paid up front.
Outside debris follows the local trash rules. In Friendswood, Waste Connections takes green waste one day a week, and grass and leaves go out in clear bags of 35 pounds or less. In Clear Lake and the rest of Houston, curbside tree waste is collected in odd-numbered months and junk waste such as furniture and appliances in even-numbered months.
Cleaners do not carry furniture, branches or storm debris, so clear those through the city service or a hauler before booking a cleaning visit.
The questions Friendswood homeowners ask most often about this topic, answered plainly.
TotalCare Cleaning will service Friendswood and surrounding areas with background-checked cleaners and is insured up to $1 million. Re-clean guarantee: if we missed something, tell us by the end of the next day and we come back to fix it. Beyond Clean. TotalCare.
