Hope they are all safe and sound out there in the NW/California.

Kurt wrote: ↑Thu Jan 12, 2023 7:46 am Hope they are all safe and sound out there in the NW/California.

What he said! Please let us know you are okay if/when possible!

We are ok. I think we will just become an island.

I live on a hillside in the Bay Area. I'm downslope in two directions. I just learned that there is no storm drain uphill of me in either direction. The nearest storm drain is nowhere near the water flow and the curbs have broken down so nothing is being routed to them. So the runoff from everyone's yard and the roads above me have just rolled through like a river. After last weekend, a second river burst through from the rear neighbor's property perpendicular to the hillside, before running into and then right along the brick raised beds we terraced in last year and down. A confluence!

The city is useless and unprepared. They inspect us yearly for vegetative fire control, but don't maintain their own lands. There have been mudslides and downed trees on the highway every few days, and all of them from city "maintained" property.

I will be rebuilding all my rustic stone retaining walls and paved patios. Several have collapsed. The water just blows through from my uphill neighbor's yard, under my freestanding garage (which flooded), down to my south facing stone walls and then out with a shocking amount of force. It's rushing through like a burst pipe. (It occurs to me that might be the hillside gopher tunnels flooding?) I am going to replace all the remaining stone walls with bricks like I did for my raised beds. It will endure better over time. Later this year we will demo the garage floor and work on installing better drainage underneath, and then do some underpinning to reinforce. Basement is also flooded (this is my grow room), so I am delayed in seed starting.

I've been in this house five years, I have NEVER seen this much water. After so much drought, it's not just the damage that is heartbreaking, but the water just washing away to nowhere... such a waste!

I am urban, so I am consulting draining and water collection contractors to help me create a plan to rework the draining system to trap and collect some of this water, rather than let it flow to my downhill neighbor and damage him too. It just seems criminal to pass the problems along to someone else, and not find some way to use it long term.

OMG! Urban hills without storm drainage is criminal!
Very smart of you to make plans for your own property, and any bounty of rain in future.
I hope the community also holds the municipality responsible for failing to spend your taxes to protect your homes with the basic infrastructure and maintenance needed!

I sincerely hope you are coming to an end of the rain so you can start repairing the damage.

My neighborhood has a system of swales that work very well. We don't have storm drains that take water away; the swales enable the water to soak into the soil and replenish our groundwater. During heavy rainstorms, water will sit in the swales for, at most, a day or two. This neighborhood, built 40+ years ago, was innovative then and as far as I can tell, has not been replicated elsewhere.

We saw a neighbor kayaking in one of the larger swales during one of the heavy storms.

Other parts of the town do get flooded, since most areas are flat and don't have good drainage. I drove through one of the farm areas a week or two ago and saw standing water on one of the flat fields.

It is good to know that some of the rain water is saved. So much of it runs to the ocean. I catch as much as I can. I have developed swales that channel the water to a drainage pond. The pond also catches the erosion solids which I can use for various projects. In my case it takes about a month for the water to percolate down. The soil where the pond is dug is mostly clay which explains the percolation rate,

Earthquakes are the main root cause for mud slides.
With all the shaking and vibrating over untold millions of years the soil doesn't get a chance to compact.

The use of swales for places that rarely rain and then get too much, is brilliant.