LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — At Superior Pools and Spas on Mundy Street in Wilkes-Barre Township, owner Michael Calore is the busiest he has been in his 40 years of business.
He says the pandemic is keeping people home, so old customers are upgrading their pools, and new customers are putting them in.
Now with demand for chlorine higher than ever, a shortage of supply has little to do with the pandemic.
"One of the largest chlorine plants in the world, really, in Louisiana burned to the ground. That chlorine plant provided about 50 percent of the chlorine tablets, which are most commonly used in backyard pools in the country," Calore explained.
Word of that fire last fall spread quickly in the pool supply industry. And employees at locally owned stores like here at Skovish Pools and Spas in Luzerne started to prepare right away.
"Last September, we ran some numbers to give us an average over the last 5 years and say this is what our typical customer uses in a year. By October, we had placed our order, so I already have half my order already physically here in the building," said Retail Operations Manager Julia Sinnott.
Pool store owners say now that folks are starting to open their pools for the summer season, they are just now learning of the chlorine shortage.
"We're telling them two things. Buy early, buy now so that they can get their supply. But in addition to that, they do have alternatives to chlorine," Calore explained.
Those alternatives include salt or switching to a chlorine-free sanitizer altogether, but experts say the increased demand for those alternatives will likely lead to a shortage of those products, too.
"How we deal day by day, we try to forecast, but it's never perfect. Statistics can't be perfect. We do the best we can to make sure our customers have what they need, and if they don't have it, we go out of our way to find it," Sinnott said.