The heavy rain pounding the area for the past three days has left many homes and businesses flooded. As YNN's Erin Clarke tells us, repairing the damage isn't as simple as just removing the water on the surface.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y -- David Mackintosh of PuroClean, a Syracuse based disaster restoration company, says it's hard to keep up with the calls coming in since Central New York was hit with flash flooding.

"What we try to do is get to as many people as we can," said Mackintosh.

Water flooding into homes and businesses is no small problem. The damage caused is usually beyond what the untrained eye can see.

"It gets sucked into dry wall. It goes under things, around things, plus, also the water on the ground becomes moisture in the air and that moisture penetrates everything," said Mackintosh.

Restoration could cost a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand dollars and if you're not prepared, you could end up paying for that out of pocket.

"Most insurance policies do not provide coverage for water damage caused by the backup of sewage and drains, as well as sump pump failure," Bailey Haskil and LaLonde Vice President of Personal Insurance Craig Bailey.

Bailey suggests adding a specific coverage limit to your premium to address this problem. If you haven't already, here isn't the place to cut corners. If the water is contaminated, say from a sewage backup, more work may be needed. These guys are specially trained to handle that.

"We have a lot of sophisticated moisture meters, non invasive and invasive. I have an infrared camera, all of which is to find out where the water went," said Mackintosh.

In the end, hiring a professional may actually save you money and the headache of time wasted doing something unnecessary.

"On a clean water loss, quite often people come and rip up all their carpet and they won't have to," said Mackintosh.