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.
Knoxville addition: open the crawl space hatch. Because most local homes sit on crawl spaces, the truth of a water event is under the floor - if insulation is hanging wet or water is standing below, that fact changes the whole drying plan and your insurer will want it photographed early.
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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