The first move is mechanical: close the main shutoff. Every gallon after that decision is a gallon that does not need drying, and the shutoff is the one tool every homeowner should be able to find in the dark. If water has reached outlets or appliances, cut power to those rooms at the breaker before wading in.
In Greeley, the first hour is a thaw hour. A pipe that froze in the night often does not leak until pressure and warmth return, so the sequence is: shut the main, open a faucet low in the house to drain the line, then walk the walls and crawl space as the thaw reaches them, because the split you find first is not always the only split. Photograph the cut out section when it comes out; in freeze country that piece of pipe is the claim.
The second move is evidence: photographs of the failed line, the rooms, and the water's reach, taken before anything is moved or mopped. Insurers approve documented sudden losses; undocumented ones get argued. Note the time you found it and the time the water stopped.
The third move is the repair read: a split is a symptom with a cause (freeze, corrosion, pressure, age), and the repair visit should name the cause, because a patched effect with a live cause is next season's burst in a nearby section of the same run.
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