Water Damage Florida provides 24/7 water damage restoration, flood cleanup, and mold remediation across Florida. When water hits your property, our FL emergency crews respond fast to stop damage and restore your home.
Hours: Open 24 Hours, 7 Days a Week
Few Florida cities live as closely with the tide as St. Augustine. The St. Johns County seat sits at sea level on the Matanzas River and Matanzas Bay, with Anastasia Island as its ocean-facing barrier and the San Sebastian River, Salt Run and a lattice of tidal creeks winding through and around the colonial-era street grid. The city itself states that roughly nine in ten residents live in a floodplain, and that its aging infrastructure often cannot handle modern rainfall volumes. When heavy rain meets a high tide here, water shows up in streets, crawlspaces and ground floors well before any hurricane arrives. Water Damage Florida provides 24/7 water damage restoration throughout St. Augustine.
Our crews work in every part of the city, from the downtown Historic District and Lincolnville, where colonial, Victorian and Flagler-era buildings demand careful handling, to the mid-century homes of Davis Shores and the newer construction on Anastasia Island. We bring pumps, extractors and drying equipment on the first visit and begin documenting for your insurance claim as soon as we arrive. Call (888) 435-4769 at any hour.
In most Florida cities an emergency call means a pipe. In St. Augustine it is just as likely to mean the tide. A king tide backing up through storm drains into a Davis Shores street, Hospital Creek or Oyster Creek rising during a downpour, Maria Sanchez Lake spilling over after hours of rain, or surge pushing across the Matanzas bayfront into the ground floors of historic district businesses: these are the calls that arrive in clusters. The plumbing failures, roof leaks and water heater floods that hit any city come in between.
We respond with submersible pumps for crawlspaces, garages and ground floors, extractors for interior rooms, and enough air movers and dehumidifiers to begin drying on the first visit. In older buildings we look immediately at the crawlspace and the base of plaster walls, because those are where tidal water hides. Moisture readings and photographs start on arrival. Our emergency water damage page lists what helps us most on the first call.
Restoring a water-damaged building in St. Augustine means respecting what it is made of. Colonial-era and Victorian structures in the Historic District and Lincolnville have plaster, old-growth wood and older masonry that behave differently from drywall and require slower, monitored drying rather than aggressive tear-out. Flagler-era buildings add their own masonry and ornamental detail. Davis Shores homes from the mid-century are mostly block and slab, and Anastasia Island's newer construction is frame or block with modern finishes. We map wet materials with meters and thermal imaging before deciding what stays and what goes.
Drying happens with the building closed and dehumidifiers sized to the space, because humid coastal air slows evaporation. Readings are logged daily, and in historic buildings we take extra care to dry masonry and plaster gradually so they do not crack or spall. Drying is finished when the numbers meet the dry standard for each material, not when surfaces feel dry.
St. Augustine's recent flood history is a run of hard lessons. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 flooded much of downtown and sent surge across Anastasia Island. Hurricane Irma in 2017 flooded riverfront businesses in the historic district again with surge from the Matanzas River. The city names Davis Shores, Lincolnville, the historic districts and the Abbott Tract as neighborhoods hit hard in both storms. Hurricane Nicole in 2022 inundated parts of the city and damaged a long stretch of State Road A1A. Between hurricanes, king tides bring nuisance tidal flooding often enough that the city runs a dedicated mitigation program for South Davis Shores.
Tidal, surge, creek and street water is treated as contaminated. Flood cleanup means pumping out what remains, removing saturated porous materials rather than drying them, cleaning and disinfecting hard surfaces, and running air filtration while the building dries. In historic buildings we work to save original materials wherever the water category and the readings allow, and in Davis Shores and the Abbott Tract we pay close attention to the lowest course of drywall and the cabinets above it, which take brackish water first.
Repair in St. Augustine can be as simple as new drywall and baseboards in a Davis Shores ranch or as exacting as matching plaster texture and trim profiles in a Lincolnville Victorian. We begin only after moisture readings verify the structure is dry, then rebuild finishes to match what was there: plaster or drywall, trim, flooring, cabinetry and paint. For historic properties we coordinate with owners on any approvals the building's status requires before finishes are changed.
The repair scope is built from the moisture logs and photographs taken during mitigation, so your adjuster sees a clear record of what the water did and where. For businesses in the historic district we plan the work around operating hours and foot traffic so a flooded ground floor can reopen as quickly as the drying allows.
A city where most residents live in a floodplain is a city where a lot of buildings have been wet at some point, and not all of them were dried properly. Mold in St. Augustine turns up in crawlspaces under historic homes, behind plaster that took surge in 2016 or 2017 and was painted over, in the base of block walls in Davis Shores after a king tide, and in the usual plumbing spots: behind bathroom tile, under kitchen sinks and around air handlers.
Our mold remediation starts with fixing the moisture source, then contains the affected area with sheeting and negative air, removes and bags contaminated porous materials, HEPA-vacuums and cleans what remains, and dries the space fully before rebuilding. In historic buildings we favor cleaning and drying original materials over removal wherever the readings support it. If your building was ever flooded and simply dried out on its own, read about where hidden mold forms after water damage.
The city's own list of flood sources reads like a map of its waterways, and our call log follows it closely. The most common causes of water damage we see here include:
From a leaking water heater on Anastasia Island to a surge-flooded storefront downtown, the order of work is the same. It exists to protect both the building and your claim.
We serve the entire city on both sides of the Matanzas River, from the downtown Historic District and Lincolnville on the mainland to Davis Shores and the city's portion of Anastasia Island, along with the Abbott Tract north of downtown.
Our crews also cover the beaches and communities of St. Johns County and the coast north and south. Several nearby cities have their own pages:
These steps are safe for most homeowners and business owners and will limit the damage in the first hour.
For storm situations, our first 24 hours after a flood guide and the hurricane water damage recovery guide walk through the rest.
Usually, if we reach it early and the water was not heavily contaminated. Plaster, heart pine and masonry can be dried gradually in place with controlled equipment and monitoring. Long-wet materials and those soaked by surge are evaluated case by case, and we explain what can be saved after the moisture mapping.
If water has reached the slab edge or the base of the exterior walls, moisture can wick into block and drywall without an obvious sign. A meter reading along the lowest course of the walls takes minutes and settles it.
Yes. We work around operating hours, protect what is not affected, and move quickly on ground floors so a storefront or guest rooms can reopen as soon as drying is verified.
It is treated as contaminated, and it is brackish, so porous materials it touched are removed rather than dried, hard surfaces are cleaned and disinfected, and metal and electrical components it reached should be inspected. A clean supply-line leak leaves much more to save.
A clean-water loss in a modern home typically dries in a few days. A flooded crawlspace or a historic building dried gradually takes longer. We set the timeline after the inspection and adjust it against daily readings.
Yes. Our crews cover St. Augustine Beach, Vilano Beach, Butler Beach, Crescent Beach and the county's inland communities, along with the rest of Florida through our statewide service areas.
Water Damage Florida restores homes, historic buildings and businesses across St. Augustine after tidal flooding, storm surge, heavy rain and plumbing failures, with crews available 24 hours a day. Call (888) 435-4769 or email info@waterdamagefl.org to get started, or learn more about our flood restoration and mold remediation services.