Tag Archives: flooding

Get Ready for El Nino; How to redirect water around your home

drainage

Even with the little rain we get do you get pooling water around your home?  Is some of your home built into the hillside?  Now imagine what a lot of rain will do.

Like millions of other structures around the world that are built into sloping ground. Builders have been dealing with water issues in these structures for hundreds of years. I was lucky and majored in geology when I was in college. One of my classes was hydrogeology, the study of ground water. The knowledge I gained in those classes allowed me to build houses and garages that were always bone dry.

Let’s first talk about what’s going on in the soil. Without studying a soil map for your area, I’m going to assume your soil has high clay content because the land your garage is on has experienced four periods of continental glaciation up there in eastern Canada in the past 2 million years. All that ice was created and melted long before man was around. Isn’t that fascinating?

The deeper you dig into the ground, the more compact the clay is. Water has a very difficult time passing through it, so rain and snowmelt that enter the soil tend to pass through the soil downslope along the top of the clay. Most of the water moves through the air spaces in the topsoil.

read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2015/09/01/how-to-redirect-water-around-a-damp-garage/

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

 

Is your home in a flood zone? El Nino is on its way report says

brace thyself for El Niño.

That’s the advice from the National University System Institute for Policy Research, which reported Tuesday that nearly 5,000 businesses and 55,000 residents of San Diego County are living in “100-year flood” zones susceptible to a strong storm season.

Link to interactive flood map:  https://msc.fema.gov/portal

Problems in San Diego ranged from destroyed homes and buildings to shoreline erosion and road damage. “A 1998 report from the California Coastal Commission identified 23 El Niño-related emergency permits issued in San Diego County in the 1997-98 winter, including $700,000 in storm related damage to the Oceanside Harbor, and $1.6 million in damages in Del Mar,” noted the National University report, which was written by senior analyst Vince Vasquez.

Tourism and agriculture are particularly vulnerable. Visitors might shun the region, and heavy storms with high winds tend to damage fruit crops and destroy greenhouses.

read more at: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/oct/06/el-nino-storm-warning-economic-damage/

disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only