Hour one is about the source: main shutoff or appliance valve, power off to wet rooms if water is near outlets, and phone photos of everything before it moves. Insurers and adjusters work from documentation, and the first hour is when the documentation is honest.
In Golden, the first day sorts by elevation and source together. Photograph the entry line or the burst, get the shutoff closed on anything still running, and say which water it is out loud: creek, storm surface, or the house's own plumbing. A hillside home adds one step: walk the downhill level before assuming the damage map, because water here finishes its trip at the lowest floor whether or not anyone watched it travel. The high water marks, photographed before cleanup, are the documents the claim will be built from.
Hours two to six are extraction territory. Standing water does not wait politely: it wicks up drywall roughly an inch an hour at first and runs under flooring along the subfloor. A shop vac handles a spill; a room of water needs truck-mounted or portable extraction and then real drying equipment, not a box fan.
By hour twenty-four the question changes from 'is it wet' to 'what is still wet.' Moisture meters, not fingertips, answer that. If a contractor cannot show you readings, the drying is a guess - and guesses are how mold shows up in month two.
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