In the last 24 hours, over 5 inches of rain has fallen on already saturated soil, with a little more to come tonight. Most of the day was spent watching the backyard flood and turn into quite a river as all the water from up the block flowed past, and some through, our backyard. All that rain washed whatever mulch there was remaining from the winter into the grass and across the yard. It took a lot of topsoil with it too, and left that all over the grass as well. Thankfully, we fared better than some, our water stayed out out of the basement (so far, fingers crossed) and did recede when the rains finally slowed down to a drizzle. But, we’re going to have to figure out pretty quickly how to clean up this mess, protect the plants that have had the soil eroded around them and get the mulch and soil out of the grass. The good news is that plants in higher areas are loving the water and warmer temperatures. We’ll see what it all looks like in the morning. We may need to deal with rerouting some of this water flow permanently to keep it to the perimeter of the yard where it belongs.
Water is always a hassle to deal with, whenever one neighbor alters their landscaping or grade, it affects everyone around them. It’s a constant battle to keep it flowing to the end of the block where the storm sewer is.
