Nashville has lived through a two-day flood of more than 13 inches and a 60-mile tornado in the last two decades. Here is how to keep a home ready for storm season and what cleaning can and cannot do after one passes.
Most Nashville storms bring nothing worse than muddy floors and a soaked porch. A few have been far more serious, and the people who lived through them have a clear sense of what helps afterward and what has to wait for professionals.
This guide uses National Weather Service records for Middle Tennessee to put the risk in context, then covers practical cleaning before and after storms. It does not cover flood or storm restoration, which is specialist work.
On May 1 and 2, 2010, Nashville received 13.57 inches of rain in two days. The Cumberland River at Nashville crested at 51.86 feet.
On March 3, 2020, an EF-3 tornado stayed on the ground for about 60 miles, from Nashville east into Wilson and Smith Counties, causing 5 deaths and 220 injuries along its track. The Weather Service found EF-2 damage across Germantown, just north of downtown, and the storm strengthened to EF-3 in East Nashville around Five Points. In Donelson's Stanford Estates area it reached strong EF-3 strength and several homes were leveled, and in Mt. Juliet dozens of homes along Chandler Road and Triple Crown Parkway took up to EF-2 damage.
Even in a normal year, Nashville gets about 50.5 inches of precipitation, with May the wettest month at about 5.02 inches, and around 81 days with measurable rain. That is a lot of wet shoes, dripping umbrellas and dogs that need a towel at the door.
Small habits keep that from turning into stained grout and dull hardwood.
Readiness and cleanliness overlap more than people think. A clear basement, an uncluttered safe room and a stocked kit all make a storm easier to ride out and easier to recover from.
Once a storm passes and the home is safe to enter, a regular clean can deal with tracked mud, leaves blown in through doors, dust from a power outage and the general disorder of a few days spent indoors. That is the kind of work house cleaners handle.
Floodwater, sewage backup, structural damage, broken glass and debris are different. Those need restoration contractors and, where relevant, your insurance company. House cleaners do not handle cleanup of water damage, mold work or debris hauling, and they should not enter a home with structural damage. Once restoration is finished, a Moving Clean or One-Time Deep Clean can help get the home ready to live in again.
Snow is not common here, with a normal year bringing about 4.7 inches, mostly in January and February. But on January 14, 2024, the airport recorded 7.6 inches in one day, and it stayed on the ground for days. A storm like that means salt, slush and grit on every floor near a door, and a good time for an extra floor-focused visit once roads are clear.
The questions Nashville homeowners ask most often about this topic, answered plainly.
TotalCare Cleaning will service Nashville 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.
