Record Snow Pack In Utah May Lead To Flooding And Water Damage; It’s Not Too Late To Get Flood Insurance
The snow pack in most of Utah is greater than the levels at the same time in 1983, the year of the infamous floods. This condition does not insure that there will be wide spread flooding, but if the weather continues wet and cold (the forecast is for rain or snow for seven out of the next ten days) adding to the snow pack and then temperatures turn hot suddenly the runoff will be very high. Another contributing factor is the ground in most areas is already soaked. When the ground is soaked, it is not able to absorb it is not able to absorb more water also making the runoff high.
Also, when the ground is soaked, the pressure from the ground water is finding it’s way into many basements that have not had water problems before. Ground water is hard to “turn off”. A sump pump is the common method of dealing with ground water problems. If your neighbors have sump pumps and you don’t you may want to consider getting one, fast! If the water is already coming into your basement, deal with the water damage the best you can while you scramble to have a sump pump installed. If you have a sump pump, make sure your home owners insurance covers a sump pump problem or failure. Beware of caps on this coverage, and ad more coverage if necessary.
Normal home owners insurance will cover water damage events that originate inside the home, but not surface or ground water that enters the home. This coverage is available as a separate policy. It is called flood insurance and is underwritten by the federal government. Most insurance agents are able to sell flood insurance. These are your options to protect you against the possible damage from flooding. Evaluate your situation and location and act quickly, there will be thousands of homes affected over the next few weeks.