Hurricane Season Pool Prep

Published August 21, 2026

Hurricane season in Broward County runs June through November, and the busiest stretch, August through October, is where we are right now. Most pool storm prep is simple, but a couple of the steps people take on instinct are the wrong ones. Here's what actually helps, before and after.

Do Not Drain Your Pool

This is the big one, and it's the myth we hear most. Draining a pool ahead of a storm feels like it should make room for the rain. It doesn't help, and in South Florida it can destroy the pool.

The water table here sits close to the surface, and it rises fast during heavy rain. Groundwater pushes up against the underside of the shell constantly. The only thing holding the shell down is the weight of the water inside it. Take that weight away and hydrostatic pressure can lift the pool out of the ground. A popped shell is a structural failure, not a repair. A full pool is exactly what's supposed to be there when a storm comes through.

What you can do is lower the level a few inches, roughly to the bottom of the skimmer. That gives you headroom for rainfall so the pool doesn't overflow into the deck, the yard, or a screen enclosure, without getting anywhere near the point where the shell is at risk. A few inches, not a few feet.

Clear the Deck

Anything loose on the deck becomes a projectile in sustained wind. Patio furniture, umbrellas, floats, potted plants, grills, solar covers: get them inside a garage if you can. For the smaller items that won't fit anywhere, the pool itself is a reasonable place to put them. Skimmer lids, hoses, poles, brushes, and cleaning tools can go straight in the water. It sounds backwards, but nothing blows away from the bottom of a pool.

Don't throw the patio furniture in. Metal frames scratch plaster and can stain, and heavy pieces are hard to get back out. Small gear only.

Shut Off Power at the Breaker

Before the weather arrives, cut power to the pump, heater, salt system, and any automation at the breaker panel. Surges during a storm are common, and equipment that's energized when water reaches it is both a damage risk and a safety hazard. De-energized equipment rides out a flooded pad far better than powered equipment does. If your pad is in a low spot, this matters even more.

Shock the Pool on Your Way Out

The last thing to do before the storm is super-chlorinate. Your pool is about to go several days without filtration, without circulation, and without anyone servicing it, while wind pushes leaves, dirt, and organic debris into it. Going into that stretch with strong sanitizer levels buys the water real margin. Heat accelerates chlorine burn-off, something we've written about separately, so an August storm eats through sanitizer faster than the calendar suggests.

After the Storm: Check the Pad Before You Flip the Breaker

Resist the urge to turn everything back on the moment power returns. Walk out to the equipment pad first and look for standing water around the motor, debris packed into the pump, a cracked lid or housing, or anything obviously waterlogged. Starting a pump that's been submerged, or one that's lost prime, can turn a wet motor into a dead one. If something looks damaged, leave the breaker off and get eyes on it. Cracked housings, torn o-rings, and damaged skimmer baskets fall squarely into the kind of minor repairs work we handle.

Expect It to Look Bad, and Move Quickly

Once you can see the water, it will probably look awful. Murky, brown, full of leaves and branches, maybe with a layer of runoff sitting on top. That's normal after a storm and it isn't a sign anything is broken. What matters is how fast you respond.

Days without filtration plus a pool full of organic debris is the textbook setup for an algae bloom. Warm water and depleted chlorine finish the job. Skim out the heavy debris as soon as it's safe to be outside, empty the baskets, and get the filter running again once you've confirmed the equipment is sound. Then rebalance. The chemistry will have moved substantially, and guessing at a dose on top of that much organic load usually means treating the wrong problem.

If the pool has gone fully green or swampy rather than just cloudy, that's past the skim-and-shock stage. That's a green-to-clean job, and it takes a staged process over several days rather than one heavy dose.

Storm prep is straightforward. Storm recovery is where pools get away from people, usually because nobody's looking closely for a week or two afterward. That's the practical case for weekly maintenance: a technician on the pool every week catches equipment damage and post-storm chemistry drift while it's still small, with dosing calculated from live readings, your pool's size, and the week's conditions rather than a fixed formula. We service Coral Springs and Tamarac, and every visit comes with a photo and a service report, so you can see where the pool stands without going out to check it yourself.