This article deals with the details of flood damage cleanup inside your home, from flooded basement, to septic tanks and water supply.

After returning home from the shelter, assess the initial damage done to your house, and to your neighborhood. This will allow you to measure the risk of entering your home, walking the streets around it, and assessing the safety level of your home and whether or not it can be inhabited with some work, or it needs major flood damage cleanup prior to being able to move back.

After having assessed that it is safe to move back to your home, with the electric circuit breaker is off, and visible debris has been removed, the flood damage cleanup process can begin.

First thing to do is to remove potentially harmful items out of the way, this includes, broken glass (use gloves when dealing with sharp objects), old food items, broken windows, broken doors, and small fixtures which may cause a fire hazard. Next, you need to recall and remove all chemicals and chemical toxins which you had previously stored in your garage. This includes gasoline tanks, motor oil, and other industrial fluids which you normally store. In a flood situation, these items stand to float and leak, thus distributing their contents to where they don't belong, complicating your flood damage cleanup effort.

If you have a basement under your house, try to remotely assess the damage and risk involved. Chances are it is flooded to a level where it is not safe to enter. You need to pump out the water from the basement. This can be done professionally by a flood damage cleanup crew, but if you own a high speed water pump, you can do it yourself. Just make sure that it is pumping to the main pool of flood water, possibly located in the street up above. While doing your work, you're probably surrounded by large amounts of water, so keep in mind that water is highly conductive and you may be at risk of electric shock should a broken or downed line be touching the same water pool in which you're standing.

One of the potentially largest problems to deal with during a flood damage cleanup is septic tanks and cesspools. Your septic tank needs to be checked to make sure it is not flooded, as this may contaminate not only your house, but also the surrounding houses and neighborhoods. Damaged sewage systems are health hazards and need to be handled professionally during any flood damage cleanup. If you think your septic tank is flooded and/or is leaking, you need to establish a shelter within your home to stay clear of the potential contamination. You may have to resort to a makeshift lavatory, which will be provided by rescue agencies.

Last, but not least, you'll have to procure clean water, for drinking, washing, and daily chores. If there is running water from the city, the problem is only half solved. You may lack the means to test the city water for contamination. That's why you need to assume that it is contaminated. The first line of defense is when using water during a flood damage cleanup is boiling the water for several minutes. This may kill the larger percentage of living and possibly harmful organisms, but the water may still not be good enough to drink due to a possible chemical contamination. In order to prepare water for drinking, it needs to be not only boiled, but rather bleached and even distilled in some cases. In order to be able to effectively treat water, you need to have a purification kit handy. These kits are usually distributed by relief agencies and are a part of flood damage cleanup packages. Otherwise, they can be obtained from outdoor and camping supply outlets.