Drainage infrastructure spends most of the year doing nothing, which is exactly why it fails when needed. A pump that sat idle for eleven months carries every fault it accumulated silently: seized floats, blinding screens, a standby generator that will not start. The season before the season is when the work happens.
Six weeks before the rains
- Run every drainage pump. Not a power-on check; an actual pumping run to rated flow. Stiction after long idle periods is real, and a pump that will not turn is discovered cheaply only on a dry day.
- Exercise the floats and controls. Cycle the level switches through their range and confirm each stage starts and stops in order.
- Clear the intakes. Screens and sumps collect a year of debris in dry weather. A starved intake cavitates the pump just when the station is asked for everything.
- Test standby power under load. The generator and transfer switch exist for the night the grid fails during the storm. Run them together, at load, before the season.
- Verify the discharge path. Non-return valves stick, outfalls get blocked by vegetation. Water that cannot leave is a pump working against itself.
- Stage the spares and the contacts. A seal kit on the shelf and the service number on the wall are part of readiness too.
Flood response is won in the weeks before the first storm. Everything on this list is cheap on a dry day; all of it is expensive in the rain.