A staged dry out process and control system for an evaporative media cooling system having a plurality of media stages that are selectively activated and deactivated by a control system is disclosed. The staged dry out process ensures that wet media stages are appropriately dried with minimal disruption to the staging strategy implemented by the control system. In one aspect, the staged dry out process monitors deactivated media stages to determine if the media stages reach a dry state before being activated. In another aspect, the staged dry out process locks out a media stage that has been in a wet state beyond a predetermined maximum time limit until the media stage attains a dry state. With this strategy the cooling system can operate without being required to completely shut down for a drying process.