NYS and NYC M/WBE Certified Contractor
The August 2024 storm that breached the Stump Pond dam and flooded Jericho Turnpike was a wake-up call for homeowners throughout Village of the Branch and the surrounding area. What looked like surface water turned into soaked wall cavities, saturated subfloors, and mold growth that showed up weeks later. That’s the part most people don’t plan for and it’s the part that ends up costing the most.
Village of the Branch has a housing stock that includes homes built well before 1978. When storm water gets into walls or disturbs old insulation and roofing materials in a home like that, you’re not just dealing with water damage you may be dealing with asbestos or lead paint that legally requires licensed handling. Most restoration companies can’t touch that work. We can, because we hold the NYS DOL Asbestos License and USEPA Lead certifications required to do it legally and safely.
Beyond the hazmat piece, the bigger outcome here is simple: your home gets fully dried, structurally assessed, repaired to pre-storm condition, and hardened against the next event. The Nissequogue River watershed isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Long Island’s summer storm season. Getting it done right the first time is what protects both your home and its value.
We’re based in Bohemia, NY in Suffolk County, roughly 20 miles from Village of the Branch. That’s not a detail we throw in to sound local. It means we’ve been working in this county through every major storm event for over a decade, including Hurricane Sandy and the August 2024 flooding that hit the Smithtown area and Village of the Branch hard. We know the permit process through the Village of the Branch’s own building department, we know what older homes on the north shore tend to hide behind their walls, and we know how Suffolk County insurance adjusters work.
With more than 5,000 completed projects and named leadership CEO Jessica Dussan and VP Leo Torres this isn’t a franchise that changes hands every few years. It’s a company where the people at the top are accountable for every job. When you call us, you get a team that’s licensed for the full scope of the work: general contracting, mold remediation, asbestos abatement, and lead paint all under one roof, all in one call.
The first step is emergency response. If your roof is open, your basement is flooded, or a tree came through a wall, we secure the property first board-up, tarping, debris removal so the damage stops getting worse while everything else gets sorted. In Village of the Branch, where the incorporated village has its own building department and permit process, we handle that side of it too. You don’t have to figure out what requires a permit and what doesn’t.
Once the property is secured, we bring in moisture detection equipment including thermal imaging cameras to find water that’s already moved behind walls and under floors. This step matters a lot in older homes, where plaster walls and original insulation hold moisture differently than modern construction. If we find anything that points to asbestos or lead paint, we handle the testing and abatement before any structural repair begins. That’s a step most contractors skip or subcontract out. We do it in-house.
From there, the restoration work begins: structural repairs, roof work, drywall, flooring, interior finishes back to pre-storm condition. Throughout the entire process, we’re documenting damage and communicating with your insurance adjuster. We can bill your insurer directly, and we know how to make sure the full scope of covered damage is captured not just what’s visible on the surface.
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Storm damage restoration isn’t a single service. It’s a sequence of work that has to happen in the right order, with the right credentials at each stage. In Village of the Branch where homes range from colonial-era structures in the Historic District along Middle Country Road to mid-century residential properties that sequence can involve more than most homeowners expect.
We cover the full chain: emergency securing and board-up, water extraction and structural drying, thermal imaging for hidden moisture, mold remediation (NYS DOL licensed), asbestos and lead abatement (USEPA and NYS DOL certified), structural repair, roof repair and replacement with impact-resistant materials, hurricane strap installation, and complete interior restoration. Every phase is handled by our team not handed off to a subcontractor you’ve never met.
For Village of the Branch homeowners specifically, the combination of older housing stock, the Nissequogue River watershed flood risk, and the village’s own permit requirements means the job often has more layers than a straightforward water damage call. We’ve worked in this area long enough to know what those layers look like and how to move through them efficiently. And when the insurance piece comes into play which it almost always does on a job of this size we handle the documentation, adjuster communication, and direct billing so that process doesn’t fall on you.
In most cases, yes. Village of the Branch is an incorporated village with its own municipal code and building department, which means structural repairs, roof replacements, and significant interior work all require permits pulled through the village not just Suffolk County. This is a layer that homeowners often don’t anticipate, and it’s one reason why hiring a contractor who knows the local process matters.
We hold a Suffolk County General Contractor license and have worked through the Village of the Branch permit process before. We handle the permit applications as part of the job, so you’re not left trying to figure out what requires approval and what doesn’t. Skipping permits on storm damage repairs can create real problems down the road especially if you sell the home or file a future insurance claim and the unpermitted work comes up during inspection.
Mold can begin growing on damp surfaces within 24 to 48 hours. That timeline doesn’t give you much room, especially in late summer which is exactly when the north shore of Long Island tends to see its most intense storm events. The August 2024 flooding in Village of the Branch and the Smithtown area is a good example: homes that looked like they dried out on their own within a few days were still harboring moisture in wall cavities and under flooring weeks later.
The problem is that surface dryness doesn’t mean structural dryness. Water moves into places you can’t see behind drywall, under subfloors, into insulation and it stays there long after the visible water is gone. That’s why we use thermal imaging and moisture meters rather than relying on a visual inspection. If your home took on water during any storm in the past year or two and wasn’t professionally dried and inspected, there’s a real possibility that mold is already present somewhere you haven’t looked.
It does, and it’s worth taking seriously. Homes built before 1978 may contain lead paint, and homes built before the mid-1980s may contain asbestos-containing materials in insulation, roofing, flooring, and wall compounds. When a storm cracks walls, disturbs attic insulation, or damages older roofing, it can expose those materials and at that point, New York State law requires a licensed contractor to handle them. You can’t just patch over it.
Village of the Branch has genuine historical depth the Historic District along Middle Country Road includes structures dating back to around 1700, and many residential properties in the village were built in the early-to-mid 20th century. We hold a NYS DOL Asbestos License, USEPA Lead certification, and USEPA RRP certification, which means we can legally and safely handle whatever storm damage uncovers in an older home. Most general restoration contractors don’t have these credentials and will either skip the abatement step or bring in a separate company creating delays, gaps in accountability, and additional coordination for you.
Most standard homeowner’s insurance policies cover sudden and accidental storm damage wind damage, roof damage from fallen trees, water intrusion from storm-related roof or wall breaches, and similar events. What they typically don’t cover is flooding from an external water source, like the kind that came from the Stump Pond dam breach in August 2024 that affected Village of the Branch residents. That type of flooding is generally covered under a separate flood insurance policy through the National Flood Insurance Program, not your standard homeowner’s policy.
The distinction matters, and it’s one of the first things to clarify with your insurer when you call. What we can tell you from experience is that a lot of homeowners accept an initial settlement that undervalues the true scope of covered damage because the full extent of moisture intrusion isn’t visible during the adjuster’s first visit. We document damage thoroughly, communicate directly with adjusters, and can bill your insurance company directly. We’ve done this on thousands of jobs across Long Island and we know what adjusters look for and where coverage gaps tend to appear.
The honest answer is that it depends on what the job actually involves, and you usually don’t know the full scope until the moisture assessment is complete. A straightforward wind damage repair roof tarping, shingle replacement, minor interior patching can be wrapped up in a matter of days. A job that involves significant water intrusion, hidden moisture, mold remediation, and structural repair in an older home can take several weeks.
For Village of the Branch specifically, the permit process through the village building department adds a step that isn’t required in unincorporated areas. We factor that into the timeline from the start so there are no surprises. The most important thing is not to rush the drying phase. Structural repairs done over insufficiently dried framing or insulation will fail and the mold that grows behind them will cost significantly more to address later than it would have cost to dry properly the first time. We don’t move to the repair phase until the moisture readings confirm the structure is genuinely dry.
This is one of the most important questions you can ask and the fact that you’re asking it puts you ahead of most homeowners in a post-storm situation. After a major storm event, unlicensed contractors and out-of-area “storm chasers” move through affected communities quickly, offering fast starts and low prices. Some do adequate work. Many don’t. And if something goes wrong improper drying, skipped permits, unpermitted structural work the liability lands on you as the homeowner.
For work in Village of the Branch, the credentials that actually matter are a Suffolk County General Contractor license (verifiable through the county), a NYS DOL Mold Remediation license if mold is involved, and USEPA Lead and Asbestos certifications if the home predates 1978. You can ask any contractor to provide their license numbers before they start work a legitimate company will hand them over without hesitation. We hold all of these credentials and have held them for over 12 years. If a contractor can’t produce verifiable license numbers on request, that’s your answer.
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