Water, Flood and Mold Damage Restoration in Laguna Beach

Shortly after 8 a.m. on Friday, October 9, 2026, high tides and big waves from Tropical Storm Rachel flooded Coast Highway and Broadway in downtown Laguna Beach. Police closed inbound Broadway at Beach Street and outbound Broadway at Coast Highway while seawater covered the road and the sidewalks, and storefronts along the flooded blocks took water. Public Works cleared the roads and reopened them the same day. The water left the street quickly. It did not leave the buildings it got into as quickly.

Downtown has been here before, from the other direction. On December 22, 2010, a storm dropped 3.44 inches of rain in six hours, more than a 100-year storm, and runoff carrying mud and debris came down Laguna Canyon into downtown. Police described the downtown area under three to four feet of water, mud piled up near the theater at Coast Highway and Broadway, and damage was estimated at $10 million. The same low ground at Broadway and Coast Highway catches both the ocean and the canyon.

That is why the source matters on a Laguna call. Surf is seawater that has crossed a highway. Canyon runoff carries mud, debris and whatever was on the slopes and streets above. Both are grossly contaminated from the first minute, so the work starts with containment, extraction and disinfection before any drying setup goes in. Mud and silt have to come out of a space completely, including from under baseboards and cabinets, or they keep feeding moisture and odor back into the room.

Downtown retail is its own kind of job. A gallery, a restaurant or a boutique needs to reopen, and every closed day costs money. We work in an order that gets the public floor back first where it is safe to, keep the space contained while the back rooms dry, and work around business hours when the owner asks. We keep daily moisture logs and photo records that a business owner can hand to a landlord and a carrier.

For a shop owner, the first hour matters. Get stock and fixtures off the floor where you safely can, and photograph inventory before anything is moved or thrown out, with a rough count and cost for each damaged item. Keep the receipts for anything you buy to protect the space. Do not run the building's HVAC if it pulled in floodwater or sits in a wet room, because it can spread contamination and damp air through the rest of the space. Then call, and we start with extraction and a written record of what we find.

Seawater leaves salt in drywall and wood after it evaporates, and salt keeps pulling humidity back in. On a Coast Highway storefront that faces the ocean air every day, that can mean a wall that reads dry, then damp again. We take readings until the numbers hold, and we put them in writing.

For homes in the canyon and on the hillsides, the risk in a storm like this is mostly rain: water through roofs and windows, runoff against foundations, and mud into lower floors. The remnants of Rachel brought heavy rain across Southern California the same weekend, so a hillside home with a wet ceiling or a damp lower room needs the same fast drying a flooded shop does.

On coverage, FEMA states that standard homeowner policies do not cover flood, and many commercial policies treat outside water separately too, so ask your agent which policy answers for it. We are not adjusters. We document the loss, estimate our own scope of work, and can bill your carrier directly for our services. We respond anywhere in Orange County and Los Angeles around the clock, our technicians hold IICRC certifications, and the first inspection is free.