Flood Cleanup in Boerne: Debris Removal After Cibolo Creek

On July 15, parts of Boerne took 9 to 10 inches of rain in a matter of hours. Cibolo Creek came over River Road, Boerne police handled 109 calls including 36 water rescues, and around 100 homes in Kendall County were assessed for damage. The city declared a local state of disaster.

If you’re reading this while standing in a house that took water, here’s the practical version of what comes next — what to document, what to pull out, and where it goes.

Before you throw anything away

This is the part people skip, and it’s the part that costs the most money later.

Photograph and video everything first. Wide shots of each room, then close-ups. Capture the water line on the walls — that single detail establishes depth of flooding better than anything else you can show an adjuster.

Get serial numbers. Water heater, HVAC, washer, dryer, refrigerator, range. Photograph the data plate on each one before it goes to the curb.

Keep physical samples. Cut a small square of the damaged carpet, a piece of the flooring, a section of drywall showing the water line. Bag them and set them aside. Adjusters ask for these more often than homeowners expect.

Save receipts. Cleaning supplies, fans, dehumidifier rental, a contractor’s labor, the dumpster itself. Cleanup costs are frequently reimbursable, but only if you can prove them.

Call your insurer before the debris leaves. Standard homeowners policies in Texas generally do not cover rising floodwater — that’s a separate NFIP flood policy. Find out which one applies to you before you start hauling.

Once you’ve documented it, move fast. The documentation protects your claim; the speed protects the house.

Why the clock matters

Mold takes hold in roughly 24 to 48 hours on wet porous material. That timeline matters more than most people realize, because flood insurance policies generally do not cover mold damage that developed because cleanup was delayed. Water damage that gets addressed promptly is a covered loss. The same water left sitting for two weeks turns into an uncovered mold problem.

Practically, this means wet drywall, insulation, carpet, and padding need to come out of the house within the first few days — not after the adjuster’s visit, as long as you’ve documented properly.

The city’s free drop-off — and who it left out

The City of Boerne set up a temporary flood debris collection site at Northrup Park, 37550 IH-10 West, starting July 21. It ran 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends, with a scheduled final day of Friday, July 31, 2026.

Worth understanding clearly, because it caught a lot of people out:

It was only for City of Boerne residents and Boerne Utilities customers. You needed a valid photo ID and a recent Boerne Utilities bill to use it. If you live in unincorporated Kendall County, out toward Comfort, in Fair Oaks Ranch, or anywhere on a well and septic outside the city’s utility footprint, you did not qualify.

You had to haul and unload it yourself. Site staff could not help lift or load. For a family gutting a flooded first floor, that means multiple truck-and-trailer trips, loaded and unloaded by hand.

It didn’t take hazardous material. Paint, chemicals, electronics, fuel, motor oil, propane cylinders, batteries, and Styrofoam blocks were all excluded.

If you fell outside that eligibility window, or the site closed before you finished, a roll-off dumpster on your own property is the straightforward alternative. It also solves the hauling problem — the dumpster comes to the house, and you load it once instead of making eight trips to the interstate.

What goes in the dumpster

Flood cleanup debris is mostly ordinary construction and household waste that happens to be wet. Standard roll-off material:

• Drywall and insulation — cut out to at least 12 inches above the high-water line, higher if the wall cavity stayed wet
• Flooring — carpet, pad, laminate, engineered wood, vinyl, and the subfloor if it stayed saturated
• Cabinets and built-ins — particleboard cabinet boxes are essentially unsalvageable once soaked
• Furniture — upholstered pieces that took water don’t come back
• Mattresses and bedding
• Baseboards, trim, and interior doors
• Damaged appliances — see the note below on refrigerant
• Fencing and outdoor structures — a lot of Cibolo Creek properties lost fence sections
• Yard debris and creek-deposited silt, brush, and limbs

What doesn’t

Same rules as any roll-off, and they matter more after a flood because garages flood too:

• Paint, stains, solvents, and pool chemicals — extremely common in flooded garages
• Fuel, motor oil, and propane cylinders
• Batteries — car, marine, and lithium-ion
• Electronics in quantity
• Refrigerators and freezers with refrigerant still in them — the unit needs to be evacuated by a certified tech first, then it’s fine

Our prohibited items guide covers the full list. If you’re unsure about something specific, call before you load it — it’s a two-minute conversation and it prevents a rejected pickup.

Dumpster sizing for flood damage

The instinct is to size by floor area. Size by how far up the water came instead, because that determines how much of the house has to come out.

A few inches of water, one or two rooms. Flooring, baseboards, and the bottom two feet of drywall. A 15 yard handles this comfortably.

A foot or more across the first floor. Now you’re into full drywall removal to four feet, insulation, all flooring and possibly subfloor, lower cabinets, and most first-floor furniture. That’s 30 yard territory.

Whole-house inundation, or a structure being taken down to the studs. A 30 yard with a swap, or a 40 yard if access allows.

One caution specific to flood work: wet debris is heavy. Saturated drywall, soaked carpet and pad, and waterlogged furniture weigh far more than the same volume dry. Wet carpet in particular is brutally heavy for its bulk. A dumpster that looks two-thirds full can already be at weight. Tell us it’s flood debris when you book and we’ll size it with that in mind rather than letting you find out at the scale.

Our debris volume guide helps if you want to work through the math yourself.

Placement on a flood-affected property

Ground conditions after a flood are not normal ground conditions, and this is where deliveries go wrong.

Saturated soil won’t hold a loaded dumpster. A loaded roll-off is heavy. Ground that’s been underwater for hours can look fine on the surface and give way under the truck. Gravel and dirt drives near the creek need a few dry days, or the container goes on the paved section instead.

Watch for scoured or undermined driveways. Moving water pulls material out from under concrete and leaves a slab that looks intact but is unsupported. If your driveway had water running across it, look for new cracking or settling before we set a container on it.

Debris and silt in the access path. Clear the approach before delivery day so the truck isn’t threading around a downed fence.

Keep it off the septic field. Standard rule, but worth repeating on rural Kendall County properties where the field may not be obvious.

We put boards under the wheels as standard practice. On flood-affected ground it matters more than usual — see protecting your driveway for the details.

If you’re outside the city limits

This is the group we most want to reach, because it’s the group with the fewest options.

Unincorporated Kendall County properties, places out toward Comfort and Welfare, and the Fair Oaks Ranch side didn’t have access to the Northrup Park site. There’s no municipal pickup coming for you. Your realistic options are hauling it yourself to a transfer station over multiple trips, or putting a dumpster on the property and loading it once.

For a house that needs gutting, the second one is not a close call.

What we can do

We’re running deliveries across Boerne and Kendall County. What that looks like for flood work:

• Same-day delivery when we have a truck free — call early in the day for the best chance
• Honest sizing for wet debris — we’d rather put the right container on site than sell you a bigger one
• Boards under the wheels on every delivery
• 7-day rental with extensions — flood cleanup rarely runs on schedule, and we’re not going to nickel you for that
• Swaps when one container isn’t enough
• Photo or video site walks before delivery if you’re unsure whether the ground will take a truck

If you’re outside the city and looking at a gutted first floor, call us at (903) 806-4181 or book a dumpster for Boerne. Tell us what the water line looked like and roughly how many rooms are affected — that’s usually enough for us to size it over the phone.

Sorry you’re dealing with this. Cibolo Creek has done this before and it will do it again, but that’s cold comfort when it’s your house. We’ll get a container to you as fast as we can.