Here is a picture of the area where I live from<\/span> Nearmap<\/a><\/strong>, taken just after the\u00a0flood\u00a0peak in Brisbane, at 2cm resolution. <\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n In Rocklea, the\u00a0characteristic\u00a0 post-flood smell was strong, even after 2 days, indicating that a host of microbiological processes were at work. There is quite a good\u00a0overview\u00a0of these processes \u00a0in the \u00a0Mold growth, assessment, and remediation <\/a><\/strong>Wik<\/a><\/span><\/strong>i. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Many \u00a0of the houses in Brisbane have a brick or wooden board outer construction, with drywall \u00a0walls and ceilings. With flooding, fungal (and\u00a0bacterial) \u00a0problems\u00a0are inevitable within a couple of days, particularly with the warm weather during and after the flood. Removal of carpets, drywall walsand ceilinsg and anything else covering cavities is essential. There is some risk to the workers, so a high level of respiratory protection is required, particularly when fungal spores and mycotoxins are being produced. However, to get an adequate respiratory protection, a good fit of a toxic dust face mask (P2 in Australia is needed, N95 in the US). As the work is hot and laborious, one with an exhaust valve is recommended. Poor fitting or the wrong type (eg surgical masks) will give little protection. My experience is that it is very difficult to get a protection factor of 10, even with careful fitting.<\/span><\/p>\n At the minimum, the cavities should be left to dry out, but that just reduces the spread of the fungi. Fans circulating the air (hard when there is no power) and open windows help. Ideally the fungal spores, mycotoxins and other fungal proteins should get killed or denatured. Bleach (a cup in a bucket of water) is the traditional approach, but it appears vinegar (4:1 with watre) is better. A huge amount would be neeed for a whole house if sponged or sprayed on. Other dry fumigation methods are\u00a0available, but I don’t know of their\u00a0availability\u00a0in Australia. Once the cavities are properly treated, it would be safe to re-sheet\u00a0walls\u00a0and\u00a0ceilings\u00a0and refurnish the house. If this is not done, then there is a real risk of long term\u00a0microbiological\u00a0problems,\u00a0particularly\u00a0if there is some source of damp.<\/p>\n The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u00a0has some good advice <\/strong>to get rid of mould after a flood<\/span><\/p>\n It will be interesting to see whether the bared cavities and flooring gets properly treated before covering with new\u00a0drywall\u00a0and carpet. A lot of smells, headaches, respiratory problems and unwellness may result in poorly\u00a0re mediated\u00a0houses.<\/span><\/p>\n I’m looking at the relative efficiencies of bleach, <\/strong>vinegar <\/strong>and other chemcials like tea tree oil<\/strong> for another post. The hidden danger of fungi and bacteria will be present after flooded Australian houses and buildings are renovated. The key to prevention will be the early treatment of cavities and surfaces before fungi and bacteria really get a hold. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,12,73,20,25],"tags":[41,141,142,274,140],"class_list":{"0":"post-769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-crisis-management","7":"category-incidents","8":"category-infection-control","9":"category-occupational-hygiene","10":"category-respiratory-protection","11":"tag-brisbane","12":"tag-floods","13":"tag-fungi","14":"tag-iaq","15":"tag-queensland","16":"czr-hentry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1326,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/flloods-salisbury-640x400.png\" "\\"flloods")
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