Nine things worth doing before the weather arrives — and one thing that will cost you far more than the storm would have. Written by people who spend every September cleaning up the aftermath in Pinellas County.
It is the first instinct and the most expensive one. Your pool water is ballast holding the shell in the ground, and the rain that comes with a hurricane raises the water table underneath it. An empty pool in saturated Florida soil can crack or lift out of the ground entirely — a repair that dwarfs anything the storm was going to do to the water.
None of it takes long, and together they decide how bad the other side looks. Most of what we haul out of pools in September was avoidable in about an hour.
The water is what's holding your pool down. Days of rain saturate the ground around the shell and raise the water table, and that pressure pushes up underneath it — a full pool has the weight to push back. Drain it first and you have removed the ballast at the exact moment you need it most.
If you want a buffer for the rainfall, take it down twelve to twenty-four inches. That is enough to stop it spilling over the deck and into the house, and shallow enough that the remaining water still anchors the shell. Below about half full you are back to the problem in the first step.
Put free chlorine at the top of its normal band before the weather arrives. You are building a buffer that has to survive several days with no pump, no filtration, and a lot of organic debris landing in the water. A pool that goes into a storm at the low end is green on the other side.
Shut the pump, heater, and salt system off at the panel — not just at the timer. It protects the equipment from the surge when power comes back, and means nothing is energised if the pad ends up underwater. Anything that unplugs and can be moved is better off inside.
Robotic and suction cleaners come out of the water and get stored dry. Left in, they are one more thing to be damaged by debris, and one more thing tangled under a pile of branches when you are trying to see the floor afterwards.
A cover does not protect a pool in a hurricane — it collects branches and roof debris, then tears, sinks, or drags all of it across the finish. The water itself handles falling debris better than a cover does, and an uncovered pool is far easier to clean out after.
Furniture, toys, planters, the float pile. The old advice was to throw it all in the pool — it does stop a chair going through a window, but it can chip plaster and leave rust marks, and cushions turn into a soup that stains. Garage first if there is room; the pool only if there is not.
Overhanging limbs are the single biggest source of what gets pulled out afterwards. An hour with a saw before the season starts is the difference between netting a few leaves and hauling half a tree out of the deep end.
Before-and-after photos are worth having if you end up making a claim, and they take two minutes. Get the water, the deck, the screen enclosure, and a clear shot of the equipment so there is a record of what condition it was in.
Even a well-prepped pool comes out of a hurricane full of debris, with its chlorine diluted to nothing and runoff in the water. That is not a skim-and-shock job — it is a health question before it is a clarity one, and it is what we do.
See storm & hurricane cleanupThe ones we field every June. See all FAQs →
No — this is the single most common and most expensive storm mistake. The water in your pool is ballast holding the shell in the ground. Saturated soil around an empty or half-empty pool puts upward pressure on it, and that is how shells crack or lift. Leave the water in. If flooding is forecast and you want extra room, lower it twelve to twenty-four inches and no more.
A foot to two feet, if anything at all. That gives you room for the rainfall without giving up the weight that keeps the shell anchored. Going much below half full starts trading a manageable overflow for a structural problem, and an overflow is far easier to deal with than a floated pool.
Get free chlorine to the top of its normal range — around 3 to 5 ppm — the day before it arrives. You are not trying to shock it; you are giving it a buffer that has to last several days with no pump and a lot of debris landing in the water. Afterwards is when it needs a proper shock, and that is a much bigger dose.
No. Shut it down at the breaker before the weather arrives. Running through a storm risks the motor if the pad floods, and leaves the equipment exposed to the surge when the grid comes back. Leave it off until someone has looked at the pad and confirmed nothing got wet.
Only if there is genuinely nowhere else. It does stop a chair going through a window, but metal can leave rust marks, hard edges chip plaster, and cushions break down into a mess that stains. A garage, a shed, or even a hallway is better. If the pool is the only option, cushions still come inside.
No, and it usually makes things worse. Covers collect branches and roof debris, then tear or sink under the weight and drag all of it across the finish on the way down. An open pool takes falling debris better and is far quicker to clean afterwards.
Weekly customers get the shock-and-shutdown pass on the last visit before a storm, and priority in the queue afterwards.