The storm season plumbing checklist, and why it belongs in March

Split deliberately. The first list needs a dry month and sometimes a contractor. The second list is what you can do in an afternoon when something is forecast.

Before the season

• Have the sewer lateral inspected if the house is older. Cracked pipe and failed joints are how groundwater gets into the sanitary system in the first place, and a line that is marginal in April is the one that backs up in September. This is also the single most useful thing to do if you have had a storm backup before.
• Test the main shut-off. Close it, confirm the taps run dry, open it again. A valve that has not moved in years can seize, and finding that out during an emergency is the worst possible timing. There is a separate article on this site about locating it.
• Pump the septic tank if it is due. Florida intervals are shorter than the national rule of thumb, roughly every two to three years rather than three to five, because of sandy soil, a shallow water table and heavy rain. Larger households can need it more often. Doing it before the season rather than after is the whole point.
• Run the sump pump, if you have one. Pour water into the pit and watch it start, lift, and shut off cleanly. Check where it discharges to, and confirm that it is not somewhere that will be underwater itself.
• Look at the water heater and its surroundings. Particularly if it sits in a garage or a low area. A unit standing in floodwater is not a unit you restart, and knowing in advance how it is fed and how to isolate it is worth the five minutes.
• Clear the drains that take rain away from the building. Yard drains, area drains, and the gutters and downspouts feeding them. This is not strictly plumbing and it is the thing that most often decides whether water ends up against the building.
• If you are on a well, plan for the power. No power means no pump means no water at all, which is a different situation from a city supply that keeps flowing. Decide in advance what the household does about drinking water and sanitation.

In the days before a storm

• Fill containers for washing and flushing. Separate from drinking water. A bathtub of water is what lets a toilet keep working when supply or pressure goes.
• Do not run laundry, dishwasher or long showers during the worst of it. If the sanitary system is already surcharged, adding to it makes a backup into your own building more likely, and this is the one control you actually have during the event.
• Know where the main shut-off is, and tell somebody else in the house. If a supply line fails while you are away or the water goes off and comes back with a surge, this is the first thing anybody needs.

What to do if it does back up

Stop using water in the building immediately, because everything you send down adds to what is already trying to come back. Keep people away from the water: a sanitary backup is contaminated regardless of what it looks like. Photograph it before anything is cleaned, since that is the record for an insurer. And report it, because if the surcharge is in the public system rather than in your lateral, the utility needs to know and the responsibility question is different.

Why March and not September

Two reasons, and the second is the one people underestimate. The obvious one is that the work is impossible when the ground is saturated: you cannot pump a tank into a flooded drainfield, and you cannot properly inspect or repair a lateral that is underwater. The less obvious one is availability. When a storm passes, every plumber, restoration firm and equipment supplier in three counties is committed at once, and the queue is measured in weeks. Preventive work has a schedule; storm work does not.