Every summer, Northeast Florida watches the tropics. When a storm starts tracking toward the First Coast, most homeowners know the drill for the house: shutters up, patio furniture in, generator fueled. The pool, though, is where we see the same mistakes year after year, and some of them turn a two-day cleanup into a two-week recovery. Here is how to get your pool genuinely storm-ready, and why each step matters.
Do Not Drain the Pool
This is the mistake that causes the most expensive damage, so it is worth understanding why. A concrete or fiberglass pool shell is essentially a boat buried in the ground. What keeps it from floating is the weight of the water inside it. In Northeast Florida, the water table often sits just a few feet below the surface, and a hurricane can dump 10 or more inches of rain that pushes it even higher. When groundwater pressure builds under an empty or half-empty shell, the pool can heave, crack, or literally pop out of the ground. Repairing a floated pool routinely costs more than the pool did.
If you are worried about overflow, do not be. A pool overflowing is mostly harmless: the water simply spills onto the deck and drains away like any other rain. At most, lower the water a few inches below the skimmer if your deck drainage is poor, but never below the bottom of the skimmer opening.
Understand What the Storm Does to Your Water
Knowing the "why" makes the prep steps obvious. A hurricane attacks your water chemistry from three directions at once:
- Dilution. Heavy rain waters down everything you have dosed into the pool: chlorine, stabilizer (CYA), calcium, and alkalinity all drop at once.
- Contamination. Wind-driven debris, dirt, and runoff from the yard carry organic material and algae spores straight into the water.
- Stagnation. With power out, the pump stops circulating. Warm, still, contaminated water is the perfect incubator, which is why a pool can turn green within days after a storm even if it looked fine the morning after.
Before the Storm: A Checklist
- Shock the water 24 to 48 hours out. A heavy dose of chlorine builds a sanitizer reserve that keeps working while the pump is off. Add a preventive dose of algaecide if you have it; the goal is to make the water hostile to everything the storm is about to wash in.
- Clear the yard, but never into the pool. It is an old Florida myth that furniture is safest underwater. In reality, metal furniture leaves rust stains on the finish, hard edges chip plaster and tile, and everything you fish out afterward is corroded. Store loose items indoors or strap them down.
- Kill power to the equipment at the breaker. Shut off the pump, heater, chlorinator, and lighting circuits. Storm surge and standing water plus an energized motor equals a destroyed motor at best and a shock hazard at worst.
- Protect what you can move. Pull skimmer baskets, cleaner heads, ladders if removable, and timer trippers, and store them dry. If your pump is in a low spot that floods, it can be unbolted and brought inside; a pro can do this quickly.
- Wrap fixed equipment. For equipment that cannot move, a waterproof cover or heavy plastic sheeting tied down around the pump and heater keeps out driving rain.
- Trim overhanging branches. Most of the debris that ends up in a pool during a storm was hanging over it the week before. This also protects your screen enclosure, which is usually the most storm-vulnerable structure in the backyard.
- Leave solar covers and automatic covers open or stored. Wind gets under covers and shreds them, and falling debris can tear an automatic cover that costs thousands to replace.
After the Storm: Work in the Right Order
The order matters more than the speed. Resist the urge to flip the breakers back on and start scooping.
- 1. Inspect before you energize. Check the equipment pad for standing water and debris. If any motor was submerged, do not power it on; have it inspected or rebuilt first. Running a wet motor finishes it off.
- 2. Remove large debris by hand and net. Branches, palm fronds, and leaves come out with a leaf rake or net. Do not send storm debris through your pool vacuum or main drain; it will clog plumbing lines that are expensive to clear.
- 3. Restore circulation and check flow. Once the pad is dry and safe, restart the pump and watch the pressure gauge. A quick spike usually means the filter is already loading up with fine debris.
- 4. Test and rebalance. Expect chlorine near zero, low stabilizer, and drifting pH and alkalinity. Rebalance in that order: alkalinity first, then pH, then sanitize hard.
- 5. Shock again and filter around the clock. Run the pump 24 hours a day for several days and clean or backwash the filter more often than usual until the water polishes up.
If the Pool Turns Green Anyway
Sometimes the storm wins the first round, especially when power stays out for days. Do not panic, and do not drain. A post-storm algae bloom is a chemistry race you can still win, and storm runoff is exactly how many of our green pool recovery calls start each August and September. Most pools are swim-ready again within a few days of proper treatment, with no draining required.
Let Us Handle the Before and After
A pre-storm shock and equipment shutdown, then a post-storm debris removal, water rebalance, and filter cleaning: this is exactly the kind of visit our one-time pool cleaning service was built for, and customers on our ongoing cleaning plans get storm-season attention built into their schedule.
A named storm in the forecast? Call us at (904) 361-1372 or reach out through our contact page and we will get your pool on the prep list.