Rice works for way more than phones, which is the funny part. People only ever talk about it when a phone takes a swim, but it pulled moisture out of your cards just fine. My grandpa used to bury wet books in a bucket of rice after his basement flooded and those things came back readable. Same trick, different stuff. The hair dryer on low was smart too since high heat would have curled the board into a taco. Sounds like you got lucky twice, once with the storm missing the paper parts and once with a roommate who knew what to do.

Oh man I actually read an article about this whole debate and pilots are basically a different show than what you end up watching. The writers are still figuring out the characters and the network notes are heavy in episode one. Jumping in at episode 3 or 4 is the sweet spot honestly, you skip the awkward setup but still get the story.