South Windsor Pool Shut Down by Storm Set to Reopen

The storm that dumped over 3 inches of rain in 45 minutes in South Windsor on Wednesday didn’t just cause some flooding and sinkholes in town.

Indeed, the pond behind Veterans Memorial Park overflowed into one of the three pools, according to Director of Parks & Recreation Ray Favreau.

The end result is that the lap pool had to be shut down and its 155,000 gallons of water drained and refilled, Favreau said. The two other pools were not flooded, thanks to the Herculean effort of town staff, Favreau said.

“It was a crazy effort,” Favreau said, noting the efforts of Parks Superintendent John Caldwell, Pool Supervisor Jaime Krajewski and Town staff member Leon Clough.

Lifeguards also assisted Favreau in stacking sandbags to keep the pond water from seeping into the other two pools.

“We would have been in bigger trouble if we hadn’t brought it under control Wednesday night,” Favreau said.

The lap pool that was shut down had to have its water dechlorinated and drained into the Podunk River. The pool then had to be cleaned because pond water is muddy and silty, Favreau said. The final step was refilling the pool and getting the proper chlorination levels.

Favreau said that if all goes well, the lap pool should be re-opened by today.

Going forwards, Favreau said that there is an overflow drain at the pond that leads rainwater into the Podunk River. But, after 26 years of not having any incidents, the pond has overflowed into the pools twice in the last 13 months, Favreau said.