Your artificial turf flooded. Here is the sequence, and when it is a rebuild instead of a clean

Storm surge brings salt water and sand, the same load covered on our post-storm sand and salt page. River and backwater flooding, more common along low-lying inland areas after heavy rain, brings fresh water but often silt, mud, and whatever the floodwater picked up upstream, ditch runoff, agricultural drainage, occasionally a sewage overflow. Either way, the water sits on and through the turf for hours to days rather than the hour or two of a normal rain, and because the water itself may not be clean, the standard for how thoroughly it needs to be flushed is higher than an ordinary post-storm rinse.

1. Wait for firm ground. Walking saturated ground more than necessary compacts it in a way that changes how the base settles back.
2. Clear heavy debris by hand once it has receded: branches, mud clumps, anything the water carried in.
3. Flush repeatedly with fresh water, more of a soak-and-drain than a single rinse, to carry out silt and any contamination.
4. Walk every edge and seam, because standing water for that long is exactly what floats an edge loose or opens a seam, and probe any soft-feeling area the way our soft spots page describes.

If the probe test comes back firm with no widespread soft areas, this is a flush and clean, treated as an intensive storm and seasonal cleanup with extra attention to sanitizing given what backwater flooding can carry. If the base has washed out under a section, if a smell of standing contamination does not rinse away, or if silt has worked in deep enough that the infill is now mud rather than sand, that section is not saved by cleaning. The turf is lifted, the base rebuilt, and that is install work for our sister company. We tell you which you have on inspection, before you spend money on a clean a compromised base will undo.

Watch for delayed odor or algae over the following weeks as anything left in the infill reacts to summer heat. If this is a repeat flood spot in your yard, that is worth a conversation about drainage and grading before the next storm, not after another one.