When calamities strike, who are you going to call?

A pipe breaks in an office building, soaking the carpet, documents and electronics.

A fire sweeps through an apartment building, displacing tenants and damaging structures.

Floodwaters seep into a basement.

PuroClean franchise owners Jeff and Charleen Oligmueller, said they respond to emergencies within 90 minutes of North Liberty, and they'll arrive within two hours.

“We try to respond before a secondary issue occurs,” Jeff Oligmueller said.

The owners are aided by one full-time technician, several part-time employees, and occasionally their two sons. With water damage, they extract 90 percent of the water and evaporate the rest with dehumidifiers.

They also can deploy air movers, specialty equipment for hardwood floors and auxiliary heat when necessary.

“On a water loss, only 30 percent of the damage is visible,” he added.

Infrared cameras and boroscopes help workers detect hidden damage.

Fire losses “are extremely labor intensive - everything has to be cleaned. Odor removal is the challenge,” Charleen said.

Soot can seep into cupboards and drawers. So workers deploy air scrubbers with HEPA filters and hydroxyl machines.

PuroClean contracts with two dry-cleaning businesses in the area for odor removal services.

PuroClean opened in August 2010 and has doubled sales in second half of the year, Jeff said. They now average one to two water jobs per week and one fire loss each month.

Though Jeff is an engineer by trade, the Oligmuellers planned to open a business in the home repair field. With PuroClean aggressively pursuing growth in the upper Midwest, “It came together as a pretty nice fit” to open a franchise, Jeff said.

Jeff's pursuit of an MBA, which he'll receive from the University of Iowa's Henry B. Tippie College of Business this fall, has meshed with building the business.

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Jarvis Property Restoration responds to catastrophes in nine states and work with 100 insurance companies nationally, Regional Marketing Manager Brian O'Dwyer said. Insurance restoration is “our every day bread and butter,” he said, noting Jarvis also sells contracting (build-back) services.

They provide residential services and contract with cities, counties, states and companies such as Toyota Financial, Quaker Foods & Snacks and Hormel Foods.

Jarvis mitigates storm damage as well - including debris removal and roof repair - and provides content restoration and even animal/hoarder cleanup.

In 2008, when the company sought a location for their Midwest headquarters, it considered Kansas City, Chicago, and Des Moines.

“We were invited (here) for a flood party of 2008,” O'Dwyer said. Company founder and owner “Bill Jarvis fell in love with Cedar Rapids.”

He hired 15 full-time labor and five management employees when the office opened in November 2008. It recently added a branch in the Quad Cities.

“We've had the busiest summer in the past 30 years,” O'Dwyer said.

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Actually Clean handled 20,000 jobs in Linn and Johnson counties in 2010, and most were carpet cleaning, owner Jason Bailey said. The company also handles water, fire, mold and storm damage.

Bailey worked with a carpet cleaning business in high school and owned a franchise from 1991 to 1993, about 2 years out of high school. He moved to Cedar Rapids in 2001 to open Actually Clean.

Actually Clean bought out a cleaning chemical company, so workers make their own cleaning materials. Their restoration equipment includes two infrared cameras, special odor-removal machinery and 700 pieces of drying equipment, which allows them to manage large restorations.

The company contracts with businesses, hotels and restaurants for carpet cleaning. Emergencies make up 15 to 20 percent of the business.

Not surprisingly, Actually Clean had record sales in 2008, due to the flood. However, their total sales have increased each year since, Bailey said.

As these companies provide services that customers don't necessarily expect to use, they rely on referrals from insurance providers, realtors, property management companies and customers.

“Insurance providers make up a small percentage of the job numbers,” Bailey said, “but 8 to 10 percent of the job dollars. They tend to be bigger jobs.”