How to prepare a Brevard County home before a tropical storm and get it clean again after, drawn from what Matthew, Irma and the storms since did to local homes.
Hurricanes are part of life on the Space Coast. The National Weather Service office in Melbourne keeps reports on Frances and Jeanne in 2004, Matthew in 2016, Irma in 2017, Ian and Nicole in 2022 and Milton in 2024, and each one left Brevard homes with a different mix of wind damage, rain and long power outages.
Cleaning cannot stop a storm, but it changes how the days after one go. This guide covers what to clean and clear before a storm, what to expect afterward, and the line between a cleaning job and a restoration job.
NWS Melbourne's report on Hurricane Matthew found that most of the wind damage in Brevard hit roof shingles, soffits, awnings and pool enclosures, and that several homes had water come in through damaged roofs. At the height of the storm about 227,000 Brevard County customers, roughly 75 percent of the county, were without power.
Irma, a year later, was more of a rain event. The Melbourne airport recorded 11.84 inches between September 9 and 12, 2017, and a gauge in Palm Bay passed 13 inches. Rain on that scale saturates yards, fills screened lanais and comes back into the house on every pair of shoes.
Both storms arrived in the wettest stretch of the year. June through September bring 27.90 of Melbourne's 50.79 normal annual inches of rain, so a storm usually lands on ground that is already wet.
When a storm is a few days out, a little cleaning makes the outage that may follow much easier to live with. The goal is a kitchen that will not spoil, laundry that is done and a lanai with nothing loose on it.
About half of the housing in Cocoa Beach is in buildings of ten or more units. Condo associations usually have their own storm procedures for balconies, shutters and elevators, so check those first and clear balcony furniture as the building asks.
About 7 percent of Brevard County's homes are mobile homes. If you leave a mobile home or any other home for a shelter or a family member's house, the kitchen and trash steps above matter even more, because nobody will be there to deal with a warm refrigerator or a full bin.
Safety comes first. Wait until the home is dry, the power is back and any roof or structural damage has been looked at. If water came in through the roof, as it did in several Brevard homes during Matthew, call your insurer and a restoration company before anyone else. Wet drywall, soaked carpet, insulation and anything growing on walls are restoration work, not cleaning.
Once the house is safe, a One-Time Deep Clean is the right reset. After days with the windows shut and no air conditioning, homes collect dust, tracked mud, sticky floors and a refrigerator that needs attention. A deep clean washes baseboards by hand, wet-wipes blinds, clears window and sliding door tracks, and wipes fans, light fixtures and vents in place.
Cleaners will bag ordinary household trash, but they do not move storm debris, fallen branches, ruined furniture or drywall. Those go out through your city's storm debris collection.
NWS Melbourne uses October 17 as the median start of the dry season, and by then the worst of the rain is usually over. A storm late in the season is a good moment to restart a bi-weekly Recurring House Clean, starting with a deep clean, so the house goes into the dry months from a clean baseline. The seasonal cleaning calendar lays out the rest of the year.
The questions Melbourne homeowners ask most often about this topic, answered plainly.
TotalCare Cleaning will service Melbourne 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.
