If you live in an area that gets a lot of snow cover during the winter, but it thaws out during the spring, you might be familiar with this problem.  Sometimes there can be a quite unwelcome guest underneath all that beautiful snow and you are not likely to find out that it is there until after the snow has already thawed and it has already done the damage it came to do.

If a blanket of snow fails to melt for quite a while after it has fallen, then you might have to deal with mold after it finally does begin to thaw out.  When a thick and wet blanket of snow settles on ground that is not frozen, snow mold becomes quite a problem.  It begins to decompose the grass under the snow and after the snow begins to melt, it is usually too late to do anything about it. 

The main symptom of snow mold is typically a large number of circular patches of deceased grass that can be between 3 to 12 inches in diameter.  In some of the most extreme cases, these patches might not look like circles at all because most of the grass on your lawn has died.  When pink snow mold has matured, it takes on a pale pink to salmon-like color.  This is caused by the mold Microdochium nivale.  This is the most serious kind of snow mold because it can completely kill the roots of the grass it affects if it is not treated as soon as possible.

Gray snow mold is caused by different species in the genus Typhula and can be colored from gray to white.  These molds usually do not cause damage to any other part of the plant than just the blades.  The root usually remains unaffected. 

Snow molds tend to grow in temperatures just above freezing and in semi-wet conditions.  While it is most commonly associated with snow cover, it can also occur when fall leaves cover a certain spot on the lawn for a long period of time.  Kentucky bluegrass-type grasses are less likely to suffer as much damage as others.

If you want to prevent snow mold from growing on your lawn, do not fertilize it less than six weeks before the cold weather begins to roll in and the grass dies.  Also, as long as your grass is still growing, you should continue to mow it.

Water Damage 

Mandatory evacuations during hurricanes and floods are not always fun to have to deal with and even during hurricane Katrina, some people did not wish to evacuate their homes and did not believe that they should be made to leave their property if they did not want to.  If you cannot evacuate from your home for one reason or another or wish not to, then you really need to be prepared to stay there for a long period of time until the flood waters recede and the area is cleaned back up.

This means that you need to be stocked up with plenty of food and even more bottled water than you think you might need for a week or two’s time.  Depending on the number of people in the home, you will want to have more food and water saved up.  Having one gallon of water put up for each person for every day you expect to be staying in the home and even more than that, since you never know exactly when you will be able to leave.  

If you need to leave the home for any reason and the waters have receded, something you need to be aware of is downed power lines.  These are extremely dangerous and you can never tell if the downed line is electrified or not.  Never attempt to cross one of these, not even in a vehicle.

Whatever water damage was inflicted on your home needs to be recorded with a camcorder, if you can get your hands on one.  You can show this to your insurance claims adjuster so that he or she knows just how much damage was done to your home and can give you a good idea of how much compensation you can expect from your insurance company. 

After you have made a video of the damage, drying out your home is the next thing that you need to start doing.  Wet items should be taken outside and left to dry, unless more rain is expected.

Open the doors and windows all around the home so that air from outside can blow through out the structure and start drying things out naturally.  A wet vacuum can be used to help extract some of the water from under hardwood floors, but a regular vacuum cleaner should never be used to do this due to the risk of electrocution.

Seattle Flooded Basement