Water Damage Help on the St. Lawrence: Ogdensburg, NY

Ogdensburg occupies the point where the Oswegatchie River, after a 137-mile run north from the Adirondacks, empties into the St. Lawrence. More than a third of the city's area is water, and across the river is Prescott, Ontario. The French built Fort de La Présentation here in 1749, and the city's historic core includes the Library Park Historic District, so many buildings here are well over a century old.

The climate is the harder part. Ogdensburg has recorded 43 below zero, and the St. Lawrence Valley took the worst of the 1998 ice storm. Frozen pipes, ice-related outages and spring melt account for most of the water damage households see here. The Restoration Job is a free referral line; call (888) 317-9980 and we'll connect you with an independent restoration provider that serves Ogdensburg and the surrounding St. Lawrence County towns.

What 43 Below Does to Plumbing

Extreme cold finds the weak spots in a house: supply lines in outside walls, pipes running through crawl spaces or unheated additions, and outdoor faucets that were never drained. A pipe can freeze solid overnight and split without leaking, then release water steadily as soon as it thaws. Older homes with little wall insulation and drafty foundations are especially exposed.

Find out where your main shutoff valve is before the first deep freeze. If a pipe bursts, close the valve, open faucets to drain the lines, and shut off power to wet rooms if the panel is reachable from dry ground. The next step is water extraction and drying of floors, walls and ceilings below the break, which typically hold more water than they appear to.

Lessons From the January 1998 Ice Storm

Between January 5 and 9, 1998, freezing rain built up 2 to 4 inches of ice across the St. Lawrence Valley, the worst icing in northern New York, according to the National Weather Service. Thousands of utility poles came down across the region, and some customers went without power for more than two weeks. It remains the only billion-dollar natural disaster to strike northern New York since 1980.

A long outage in deep winter turns into a water problem: furnaces stop, pipes freeze, and sump pumps sit idle when meltwater arrives. Before winter, consider how you would keep the house above freezing without grid power, or how you would drain the plumbing if you had to leave. A battery backup on the sump pump and a generator installed with a proper transfer switch can prevent much of the damage.

Where Two Rivers Meet

The Oswegatchie drains a long stretch of Adirondack and St. Lawrence County country before reaching the city, passing through Cranberry Lake and Gouverneur on the way. The St. Lawrence itself is a regulated river, with outflow from Lake Ontario managed at the Moses-Saunders Power Dam and Long Sault control dam, and Ogdensburg's port is the only U.S. port on the St. Lawrence Seaway. Homes, docks and businesses along either shoreline should check FEMA's flood maps for their exact address. Standard homeowners policies exclude rising water, so flood coverage is a separate purchase, and new policies usually carry a waiting period before they take effect.

From the Thaw to Drying Out

Spring brings snowmelt, rain on frozen ground and higher groundwater, which is when basements in the older parts of the city are most likely to take on water. If it happens:

• Stay out of standing water until the electricity to that area is off.
• Photograph the water, the damage and the outside of the house before cleanup starts.
• Move furniture, rugs and stored boxes to a dry floor, and get cardboard out entirely.
• Call your insurer and ask how the source of the water affects coverage.

A provider doing water damage repair will pump out water, remove materials that can't be dried, and set dehumidifiers and air movers with daily moisture checks until the structure is back to normal.

Mold in Long-Closed Basements

Basements that stay shut up through the winter tend to trap moisture, and after a spring leak they warm up just as conditions turn favorable for mold. Watch for a musty smell, dark spotting on joists or drywall, and stained boxes. Drying the space thoroughly and running a dehumidifier into summer is the main defense. If growth is widespread, keeps returning, or sits inside walls, a professional handling mold remediation can contain it and locate the moisture source.