water spill on laptop resulted in blank white screen

I accidentally spilled water on my 3 year old Dell Inspiron 1525 about five hours ago. My immediate reaction after I cleaned with a towel was to turn it on to see if everything works fine, and this resulted in a blank white screen so I turned it off and turned it on a couple more times and it showed a blank screen the first time and then shut down after showing the dell sign the second and third time. After checking on online support  forums through a friend's computer I realized that I had made a mistake on turning it on immedietly  as this could short the mother board so I took out battery and turned it upside down and to let it dry. I turned it back on after 4 hours to see if it was ok but it showed a white screen again. I have noticed people mentioning that this could mean that the motherboard was affected or that the screen might need replacement (note: the screen did recieve some of the ) Could someone help me figure out an answer as it might be a few more days before I can go home (I'm out of town at the moment) and take it to the repair person I usually visit. For the time being it's been laid upside down and will not be turned on for another 12 hours or so.