A River Runs Through It

This last week I had the good fortune to visit several properties with an old friend of mine, who has been in the irrigation and drainage business for over 25 years, to look at different properties with water erosion issues - some severe and some, not so.

I have worked with him on several projects over many years and have seen his quality of work, so I wasn't inviting him to visit my customers' properties simply because we are friends on and off the tennis court.

Other than Mother Nature, whom we cannot control, there are basically three other factors which contribute to water erosion on most properties:

• The home - particularly its roof and perhaps other surrounding structures such as driveways, walkways and patios.
• The landscape - the make-up and lay-of-the-land and that of surrounding landscapes.
• Surrounding and supportive infrastructure - roadways, storm drains, sewage, etc.

We had visited four properties this one day and arrived at viable answers for each - sound diagnosis, along with efficient and economical solutions.

Then we visited a property owner who provided me the following video a few days prior. I saved this property for last as I believed it needed the most attention.

This video was taken Sunday, July 23, 2017 when the Columbia area received several hours and inches of rain. But, this property is not near Five Points or on the lower parts of South Main, Blossom or Whaley streets. I initially thought the video may have been from the flood of October, 2015.

It's in a low-lying area nearby, but not at the absolute lowest point of a fairly level area. We viewed all the debris which had been pushed into the front foundation of the home, along its sides and eventually collected at the back fence.

We investigated two gutter downspout outputs which need to be diverted and dispersed to other areas, but this was not adding up as the cause of this flooding, not nearly.

The property owner mentioned that there appeared to be a small geyser coming up from a storm drain in front of her home during this event and she had experienced flooding increasingly over the last several months. There is also another storm drain offset by several feet across the roadway from the one immediately in front of her property. Although the street does not have curbs or gutters, the asphalt is graded upward on it borders, appearing to provide adequate channeling away from adjacent properties and into the drains. Something wasn't working.

I was also there to consider restoring a plant bed in front of the home. This task and diverting the downspout outputs seemed like moot points until the influx of water from the roadway, most likely due to the lack of, or the less-than-adequate drainage issue could be resolved. These projects would be a waste of time and the property owner's money.

I contacted an acquaintance in government and am so thankful he addressed the issue in council that very day. The property owner was contacted by the related authority that day or the next.

Hopefully issues will move forward in the interest of the property owner and the outcome will be best for all parties involved.