Our cover had a meltdown!

I had our AGP closed, covered, wrapped, and in a last ditch effort to get the cover to stay put added a couple inches of water on top of it. It blew the winch cable apart and blew off anyway. It's now sitting at the bottom of the pool, and I HAVE to figure out how to get it drug out alone tonight, we hit 3 degrees last night and there's a thin layer of ice across the top of the pool water. Knowing that we did everything to try and get that stupid cover to stay put what are my options? The company is offering to replace the cover since most of the grommets are no longer attached, but all I foresee is the same exact thing happening again.

If we recover with an identical cover how do we prevent the water from pushing the liner through and flooding the empty skimmer basket, if I fill it higher with water in an attempt to hold the cover down. Last resort is leaving it uncovered for the winter and dealing with all the **** on the bottom in the spring (it's still fairly clean for now)
 
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