24/7 Emergency Service
Preventing Damage and Ensuring Safety During a Richmond Winter Storm
3/6/2015 (Permalink)
During Richmond winter storms and extreme periods of cold, your family and property are at-risk for many perils regardless of where you live.
Preventing Damage and Ensuring Safety During Winter Storms
During Richmond winter storms and extreme periods of cold, your family and property are at-risk for many perils regardless of where you live. Keeping a calm and practical attitude during this time can minimize many of the dangers. For example, people often use space heaters and carelessly start fires. If the power goes off, your positive actions can reduce the negative consequences.
Safety Tips to Follow During Winter Storms
Staying informed can prevent many dangers, so listen to the radio or television for . Watch for changing conditions, and prepare for a siege if the weather warrants it. Start following your disaster or emergency plan to conserve resources. Reduce temperatures, cut heat to rooms that you don't need and move your pets to a place where they're sheltered. Dress in layers to save body heat. Other safety tips include:
- Open cabinet doors around interior pipes to allow warm air to circulate around the pipes.
- If pipes freeze, open faucets to relieve pressure and prevent them from bursting. Remove insulation around the pipes, wrap them with rags and pour hot water over them until water begins to run.
- Stay indoors unless an extreme emergency arises.
- Use only safe methods of providing extra heat because fires are more common during storms. Make sure that kerosene heaters are ventilated, and always fill them outdoors for safety reasons.
- Let faucets drip during periods of extreme cold.
- If you must drive, let someone know where you're going and when you're expected and stick to the major roads and daylight driving.
- Wet clothing loses its insulating value, so replace wet things with dry garments.
- Keep exterior entries and unheated spaces closed.
- Check your roof after major snow and ice events to see whether snow and ice have accumulated in areas to create unsafe weight.
- If water begins to penetrate your home, turn off gas and electricity. When it's safe to begin removing water, remove damaged materials and as much standing water as possible before calling a remediation expert.
Even minor periods of cold can damage pipes and influence family members to try risky behavior. This fact is especially true in areas that don't usually experience cold weather. If you leave your home during inclement weather, set heat at a minimum of 55-degrees Fahrenheit to protect your possessions from the cold. If you plan to be away for some time, consider turning off your water and draining water heaters and hot tubs to prevent catastrophic leaks and flooding. Remove snow from window wells, stair wells and areas of the roof where snow accumulates, but don't melt the snow because it can cause water damage.
Safety is your foremost concern during a winter storm in Richmond, but you can also minimize the risks to your home by following safe practices during a storm.
SERVPRO of Richmond Professionals provide fire and water damage restoration services. SERVPRO of Richmond proudly serves Chesterfield, Richmond, Henrico, Glen Allen, Midlothian, Short Pump, Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Chester, Hopewell, and surrounding areas. We are available 24 hours/7 days a week and are ready to restore damage to your home or commercial structure caused by:
24/7 Fire Damage Restoration Service * 24/7 Carpet Restoration Water Damage * 24/7 House Flooding Damage * 24/7 Mold Remediation *24/7 Bio-hazard Crime/Suicide Clean *24/7 Fire Restoration.