Pumping, removal and cleaning after creek or river water enters a building, then drying the structure that stays.
Fastest: call (833) 490-5225. Or send this and we call you back.
Flood restoration deals with water that arrived from outside the building, so it is handled as contaminated from the start. Porous materials it touched are removed rather than dried, surfaces are cleaned, and the structure that remains is dried against readings. Broken Arrow Water Damage Restoration serves Broken Arrow and the Tulsa metro, with crews dispatched 24/7.
Floodwater is not a bigger version of a plumbing leak. It has crossed ground, roads, yards and whatever the storm picked up on the way, and a restoration crew treats it as contaminated whatever it looks like in the room. That single decision drives the rest of the job: carpet, pad, insulation, particleboard furniture and the lower band of drywall go out rather than being dried, and the work area is kept separate from the parts of the building that stayed dry.
Local flooding here comes from two directions. Creeks rise fast and fall fast: storms in September 2018 closed roads around Haikey Creek, and in November 2024 police were watching the Haikey Creek and Adams Creek watersheds while a line of storms moved through. The Arkansas River is slower and bigger, and it is driven by releases a long way upstream.
The order of work on a flood job is fixed by health rather than by convenience. Water out, contaminated materials out, surfaces cleaned, then drying, then reinstatement. Skipping ahead to drying with wet carpet pad still in place leaves contamination in the building and wastes equipment days, which is why the scope is agreed and written down before a single fan is set.
Keystone Dam releases rose from 160,000 cubic feet per second on May 21 to 275,000 by May 27, and the water reached south Tulsa and Bixby eight to ten hours later. The river came up to Bixby's high school and damaged several homes, Jenks Public Schools ended the year early, and a leaking levee near West 36th Street and South Elwood was rebuilt overnight.
Broken Arrow declared an emergency during the event and urged voluntary evacuation in the 100-year floodplain, mainly south of 131st Street, while also warning about Haikey and Elm Creek flooding. The total number of homes flooded across the area was not published in the sources behind this page, so no figure is claimed here.
The lesson homeowners took from it had less to do with the river than with the warning time. Upstream releases are public information and they move slowly, which gives households in the low ground along the river hours rather than minutes. The guide to the May 2019 Arkansas River flood goes through that timeline in detail.
Check the current effective map rather than trusting any website, including this one. FEMA's preliminary 2014 panels for the area label the East and Middle Branches of Haikey Creek and mark Zone AE along parts of Haikey Creek and the Arkansas River in south Broken Arrow, but those panels are drafts.
A preliminary map is a proposal, not a determination, and it can differ from the map that is actually in force for your address. The place to look is FEMA's Map Service Center, which publishes the current effective Flood Insurance Rate Maps and lets you search by address. Nobody at a restoration company should be telling you what zone your house sits in.
Zone status matters for insurance rather than for restoration. A flood job is handled the same way whether the map says AE or nothing at all, because the handling follows the water. The guide to Haikey Creek and Adams Creek flooding sets out which crossings go under and how to read the map series.
Because contamination cannot be dried out of a porous material. Carpet pad, fibreglass insulation, particleboard, paper-faced gypsum and upholstered contents absorb both the water and whatever it carried, and no amount of airflow removes the second part. Hard, non-porous materials are cleaned and kept.
That is why a flood scope usually includes a cut line across the walls above the high-water mark. Opening the wall gives access to clean the framing and the plate, lets wet insulation out, and allows the cavity to dry from both sides. It looks drastic on day one and it is the difference between a building that dries and one that smells for a year.
Contents follow the same test. Hard goods, glass, metal, sealed plastics and most solid timber clean up. Mattresses, soft furniture, pressed-board shelving, stored cardboard and anything with a paper core generally do not. The crew sorts rather than guessing, lists what is going, and photographs it before it leaves.
It can, directly or indirectly. Heavy rain loads sewer systems, and a surcharged system can discharge through a floor drain, a cleanout or a low fixture while outside water is also arriving. Either way the water in the room is handled as contaminated, with removal replacing drying for porous materials.
The practical consequence is about people rather than materials. Keep children and pets out, do not work in it in bare feet or open shoes, and wash thoroughly afterwards whether or not you touched anything obvious. Food, medicine and cosmetics that were in contact with it are not worth the argument.
If the discharge came from the building's own drainage rather than from outside, the plumbing side has to be cleared before cleanup is worth starting. Sewage backup cleanup covers the handling, and the guide to sewage backup after heavy rain in the Tulsa area explains why the two so often arrive together.
Stay out of the water if it has reached anything electrical, photograph everything from the doorway, and move upward rather than outward: lift what you can to a dry floor or a high surface. Do not start pulling carpet or running a household vacuum over outside water.
If the water is still rising, people and documents come first and the building comes second. Where it has already dropped, propping doors open and getting stored cardboard off a wet floor both help. Photographs taken before anything is moved are the record that matters later, and they cost nothing but a minute.
Crews are dispatched around the clock as soon as one is available, and in a widespread event every crew in the metro is working, so no arrival window is promised. Call (833) 490-5225 and keep a note of what you have already done, because it changes what the crew brings through the door.
Never enter floodwater that has reached receptacles, cords, a furnace or a submerged gas appliance, and treat it as contaminated regardless of how clear it looks: boots, gloves, no bare skin, and children and pets kept out. Keep the household vacuum well away from it. Do not restart a submerged furnace, water heater or HVAC unit; have it checked first. Discard food, medicine and cosmetics it reached.
Before anything is pumped, the crew checks for live electrical at or below the water line, gas appliances that have been submerged, and any structural movement at doors and floors. Circuits serving the flooded area are isolated at the panel. Floodwater is treated as contaminated, so protective equipment goes on at the door.
Submersible pumps handle depth, and extraction units take the rest off hard floors and out of low points. Photographs and readings are taken before materials move, including the height of the water line on each wall, because that line decides how much of the wall comes out. You keep a copy of that record.
Carpet and pad, wet insulation, particleboard and the lower band of drywall are cut out to a line above the wet mark, with your agreement, so the framing behind can be cleaned and dried. Belongings are split into what will clean up and what will not. Everything removed is listed and photographed.
Framing, slabs, masonry and sound hard surfaces are cleaned of silt and residue, then treated, because drying a contaminated surface simply dries the contamination onto it. Ductwork and cavities that took water are opened and cleaned rather than sealed up. Work areas stay contained while this runs.
Air movers and dehumidifiers go in once the removals and cleaning are done, with readings repeated daily against a dry benchmark in the same building. Concrete, masonry and framing come down at very different speeds, so the log governs the finish date. Replacement drywall, insulation and flooring are quoted as a separate stage.
Haikey Creek, its East and Middle Branches, Adams Creek and Elm Creek respond to rainfall within hours, and the water comes up and goes down inside a day. The damage is concentrated near the channel and the buildings affected are often the same ones each time. Roads go first: South 273rd East Avenue has closed where it meets Adams Creek.
River flooding here is governed by releases from Keystone Dam upstream. In May 2019 the outflow climbed from 160,000 cubic feet per second on May 21 to 275,000 by May 27, and the water took eight to ten hours to work its way down to south Tulsa and Bixby. That lag is the one advantage this kind of flooding gives you.
Water that never touched a creek still floods buildings: a blocked yard drain, a driveway that slopes to the garage, a saturated lot with nowhere left to take rain. It is outside water and is handled as such. Basement and lower-level water damage covers the rooms that collect it first.
Call any hour and explain what is going on. You get a clear price before any work starts.
Broken Arrow sits mainly in Tulsa County with a western-Wagoner-County section, and its growth has been heading south and east, which is also where the mapped creek and river floodplains lie. The city's own response in May 2019 focused on the 100-year floodplain south of 131st Street, with warnings about Haikey and Elm Creeks. Those are the geographies that produce flood calls here, rather than the city as a whole.
Creek crossings are the early-warning system that costs nothing to watch. South 273rd East Avenue has closed where it meets Adams Creek during floods, and roads around Haikey Creek closed in the September 2018 rain. When those routes go under, water is already where it should not be, and households in the low ground nearby have very little time left.
Rainfall totals here arrive in bursts rather than steadily. The Tulsa-area 24-hour record stands at 9.27 inches on May 26 to 27, 1984, the wettest month on record holds 18.18 inches in September 1971, and October 2023 delivered three to five inches widely with six to eight inches in places. Those are the events that put creek water through doorways.
Pulling standing water out of rooms, carpet, slabs and cavities in the first hours, then handing the job over to measured drying.
Removal, cleaning and drying after a drain or sewer backup puts contaminated water into a floor, bathroom or lower level.
Pump-out and measured drying for basements, walkout lower levels, sunken rooms and storm shelters that have taken on water.
Covering the opening, pulling the water out and drying attics, ceilings and walls after hail, wind and wind-driven rain.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
Haikey Creek and Adams Creek are the two watersheds Broken Arrow watches in a heavy rain.
In late May 2019 Keystone Dam releases climbed from 160,000 cubic feet per second on May 21 to 275,000 on May 27, and that water took eight to ten hours to reach south Tulsa and Bixby.
Yes, and the reason is what it left behind rather than what it took away. Silt, residue and contamination sit in carpet, pad, insulation and the base of the walls after the visible water has gone, and the framing is still wet. A building that dried itself after outside water is the classic route to a mold complaint months later.
Above the highest point the water reached, which the crew establishes from the tide line and the meter readings rather than by eye. Wicking carries moisture higher than the visible mark, so the cut sits above it. Where readings allow, a lower cut is used, and you see the numbers behind the choice.
Tile over a slab often does, once the slab beneath has been cleaned and dried. Solid hardwood sometimes does, depending on how long it sat and what was under it. Engineered planks and laminate with a pressed core generally do not, because the core swells and does not come back. The readings and the material decide it.
Documentation helps whatever the outcome: photographs taken before anything moved, the water line heights, moisture readings, the drying log and the list of what was removed. Coverage decisions sit with your insurer under your policy, and flood cover is usually handled separately from a standard homeowner policy. The Oklahoma Insurance Department runs a consumer-assistance service for policyholders.
The removal and cleaning stages are usually a matter of days; drying runs for several more and masonry or concrete can take longer than framing. Reinstatement follows after that and is a separate piece of work. The drying log, not a promised date, is what says the structure is ready.
The principles are identical but the sequencing is not, because stock, records and equipment have to be dealt with before floors can be worked on, and access is often outside trading hours. Commercial water damage restoration sets out how a flood scope is phased around a business that needs to keep operating.