Is it normal to just strap the portable toilets to pallets when the site floods?

You shouldn't wait for a 100-foot pool to dry out on its own, especially with more rain or high humidity in the forecast. If that service truck sinks to its axles, you're looking at an expensive recovery bill and a total mess if the vacuum pump or tank gets damaged. Most rental companies won't even attempt to service units if they have to navigate a foot of standing water on soft subgrade. You need to get a trash pump and a couple hundred feet of discharge hose to move that water to a legal drainage point or a lower swale imediately. The crew was smart to strap those units down to skids. Those plastic shells are basially hollow air pockets when they aren't full, and they will absolutely float or tip over in a foot of water. But even if they're secure, your crew is still wading trough muck to get to them. We usually build a temporary walkway using timber mats or double-stacked pallets to keep people out of the water. It’s a major safety hazard to have guys slipping around in standing water just to use the head.

Even after you pump the surface water off, that soil is going to be soup for days. You might need to spread some 3-inch minus rock or heavy gravel to create a stable pad for the service truck to reach the units without bottoming out. If you let it sit, that water is going to get stagnant and start smelling worse than the toilets themselves. Getting the water off the staging zone now is the only way to see how much remediation you'll actually need to do to keep the site functional.

Totally agree. If you wait, you're just begging for a mosquito farm and a stuck truck. One thing to watch for—once the service truck acutally empties those units, they lose all their ballast. Even with the straps, if the water level rises another couple inches while they're empty, they can still shift or strain the straps enugh to snap 'em. I've seen units move three feet from where they were supposed to be becasue they got light after a pump-out. Make sure those skids are weighted down with some cinder blocks or sandbags just to be safe while the ground stays soft.

I had this exact mess on a garage build last spring. Instead of trying to get the service truck back there, I called the rental company and they sent a guy with a longer hose—about 50 feet extra—so he could stay on the gravel drive while I used my 4x4 to nudge the skids closer. It saved me from burying a 10-ton truck in the mud.

Once you pump the water out, throw down some bags of lime. It’s the only thing I’ve found that actually dries the soup up fast enought to walk on by the next morning. If you just leave it, that mud stays soft for way too long.

Is it realy a foot deep across the whole 100 feet, or just a low spot that looks worse than it is? Have you ruled out that the site's natural drainage is just blocked by a temporary berm or some clogged silt fencing? I’ve seen guys spend all day pumping out a 'lake' only to realize a single blocked culvert was the real culprit.

Also, where are you planning to send that water? If the whole lot is graded flat, you might just be moving the puddle from the units to the foundation. Might be worth checking the perimeter for a simple blockage before you commit to the pump rental.

Quick update—I checked the perimeter and found a silt fence that was totally backed up, like someone suggested. Clearing it helped drop the water a bit, but the ground is still a total sponge. I'm relly worried about the units shifting once they’re emptied and lose that ballast. Does anyone know if the rental guys usally carry those extra-long hoses, or do I need to call ahead?