Pool Storm Cleanup

Storms here are not just a hurricane season problem

Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, with the busiest stretch from mid August to mid October. But Houston pools take storm damage all year. June is the wettest month on average at Bush Intercontinental, spring squall lines drop limbs and shingles into backyards, and in 2024 the Houston area saw both a May derecho and Hurricane Beryl in July knock out power for days. A pool that sits without circulation in summer heat can start to turn within a few days, so the cleanup clock starts as soon as the wind stops.

Safety first at the equipment pad

Your pump, filter, heater, salt cell, and the controls for your lights and automation usually sit together on one equipment pad, close to the ground and often in a low corner of the yard. If that pad was under water, do not touch the equipment or flip breakers while standing in water. Turn off power at the main panel only if you can do it from a dry spot. Motors, heaters, and control boards that were submerged need to be dried and checked before they run again, and anything with damaged wiring or a tripped GFCI that will not reset belongs to a qualified electrician.

Once the pad is dry and safe, we inspect each piece, clean the baskets, and restart the system one component at a time. If something was damaged, we diagnose it through our pump repair and equipment repair services and tell you plainly whether it is worth fixing.

Why you should not drain the pool

Emptying a pool full of muddy water feels like the fast fix. It is the one thing to avoid. After heavy rain the ground around the pool is saturated, and the water in the pool is part of what holds the shell in place against that groundwater pressure. An empty pool in wet soil can crack or even shift. If the water level is above the skimmer, we lower it back to the normal line and stop there.

Draining before a storm is a mistake for the same reason: the rain that follows saturates the ground around an empty shell. Better preparation is leaving the water in, moving chairs, umbrellas, and toys off the deck so the wind cannot throw them into the pool, and planning to pump the level back down once the rain stops.

What the storm did to your water

Several inches of rain dilute everything in the pool at once: chlorine, stabilizer, alkalinity, and salt. Salt systems often show a low salt warning after a big storm because the reading really did drop. Runoff can wash in soil, mulch, fertilizer, and lawn chemicals, and floodwater can carry sewage. All of that consumes chlorine and feeds algae.

We retest the full set of numbers after the debris is out, shock the pool to the level the water needs, and rebalance in the right order. If algae has already taken hold, the job shifts to a full green pool cleanup. If your filter is packed with silt, a deep filter cleaning is usually the next step.

Signs your pool needs storm cleanup

• Branches, leaves, or shingles on the pool floor
• Water level above the skimmer opening
• Muddy, brown, or tea-colored water
• Floodwater reached the equipment pad
• The pump will not prime or the breaker keeps tripping
• Salt system shows a low salt or no flow warning
• The pool sat without power for more than a day or two

What storm cleanup covers

• Removing limbs, leaves, and debris from the pool and deck edge
• Emptying skimmer and pump baskets before restart
• Equipment pad inspection after flooding or power loss
• Careful restart of pump, filter, heater, and salt system
• Lowering high water back to the skimmer line, never a full drain
• Vacuuming silt and mud from the floor
• Filter cleaning or backwashing to clear storm sediment
• Full retest, shock, and rebalance of diluted water