Above is the scene from this morning before I decided to distract myself with Cafe Press briefly. It apparently rained hard last night. So I went up to check the water drainage the neighboring development dumps on us. Below’s a photo of the culvert that is failing, and half the water is running under it. And then there’s a ditch behnd it they decided to also recently drain onto our property. Apparently we are the cesspool for them.
Next is the video of all the erosion all this water is doing to our property.
And this one shows the eroded culvert that drains the development from the north and behind it the ditch they decided to divert onto our property that drains the development from the east.
After this little tour I came into the house distracted myself a bit with Cafe Press. But then we went out again to survey the damage. In the meantime the water flooded out of the ditch at the back of our yard and filled in our backyard and garden with water.
Our garden had been planted with peas, potatoes and swiss chard. So we sand bagged the edge of the ditch and then checked further downstream to make sure there was nothing damming things up. Since there wasn’t, we went upstream and made the painfully difficult decision to divert the water away from our home and toward the fields with our animals.
So far, so good. We have an evacuation plan for our animals if need be, and this should keep our home from flooding. So far our lawyer, state and county government officials have done nothing to help us with this problem, but we will be calling them again on Monday.
PS The videos did not download well onto WordPress. They are also on youtube in the unlikely event someone wants to see them. They are at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEhnlEt4J6Y and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36MGxuDc9IY
Oh man, Donna – I do not understand why the county won’t do something about this – you gotta know that if YOU were causing this problem for someone – they’d be on your backside in an instant! Maybe your movie will move someone to do something! Good luck. Glad you caught it before it flooded the house. T.
Thanks Tina. I do not understand either.
wow. scary stuff. that’s a lot of water. so sorry to hear that the runoff issues continue 🙁
Thank Denise. It is scary stuff.
Donna, can’t you sue these guys?
We can. Our lawyer said it could cost tens of thousands of dollars and since the culvert has been here 30 years…
Such a shame. I live in a highly erodible area as well. I’m tiling and trying to stop the erosion, but my efforts will be hampered as long as the neighbors don’t do anything. I hope you will finally get some help.
Thanks Teresa. It is a shame.
That is some serious draining and flooding! I watched the video. I’m glad you have that, it might help get some action. We are VERY familiar with run-off and erosion here, and the damage it causes. I’m sorry you are having to continue to deal with the run-off problem from the neighbors.
jackie
Hanks Jackie. We think it is serious but can’t get any real action so far. We did a test for bacteria in the water and it came back positive. So not only did our garden flood but it became contaminated too. So now we have a whole new agency involved. Hopefully something can be done!