Hour one is about the source: main shutoff or appliance valve, power off to wet rooms if water is near outlets, and phone photos of everything before it moves. Insurers and adjusters work from documentation, and the first hour is when the documentation is honest.
In Georgetown the first day splits by era. Old town: check the under floor as well as the rooms, because a pier and beam event reports below before it reports above. Subdivisions and Sun City: stop the source, photograph wall bases and flooring edges, and note whether the heater sits in the attic, which decides how many rooms the map covers. Both: on river lots, photograph the entry line before anything is moved.
Hours two to six are extraction territory. Standing water does not wait politely: it wicks up drywall roughly an inch an hour at first and runs under flooring along the subfloor. A shop vac handles a spill; a room of water needs truck-mounted or portable extraction and then real drying equipment, not a box fan.
By hour twenty-four the question changes from 'is it wet' to 'what is still wet.' Moisture meters, not fingertips, answer that. If a contractor cannot show you readings, the drying is a guess - and guesses are how mold shows up in month two.
Prefer to talk later? Leave your details and an independent local pro will call you back. No charge to you, no obligation.
Blue Hole Restoration is a free referral service. Submitting this form connects you with independent local contractors who provide the work.