Landscaping: 100ft long channel drain

After a "100 year flash flood" swept down the Wasatch Mountains and flooded the basement of this home, it was time to implement a serious drainage strategy.

I installed a 20ft channel drain along the back patio slab-- the lowest spot in the backyard -- to stand like a fortress wall between the mountain and the house. When flood waters hit it, it gets quickly swept away down an 80 ft. run of drain pipe, curving around the house like an underground slip & slide all the way out to the street.

To protect the aspen tree roots and the existing irrigation lines I dug the 100ft trench carefully, by hand, doing my best to be kind to the giants.

I used plastic drainage pipe because I hadn't yet heard of vitrified clay pipe (VCP), which has been used successfully for 5000 years to carry unpressurized water. But next time I'll do better :) Even so, I mated the joints with non-toxic construction adhesive (Red-List free) because the less toxins in the environment the better, and heck, I never let the perfect be the enemy of the good (or even the better-than-worst).

While I had the ground open, I also took the opportunity to tie-in the roof's gutter system to the drainage system.

And guess what? That "100 year flood" happened again 5 years later!

Close call!

It makes you think: why are these "100 year storms" happening more frequently?

It's like... a coincidence, right?

Yes, for sure. Total coincidence. No one knows why they're happening more frequently.

Oh hey, but coincidentally I just found this peer-reviewed article put out by Cornell where they surveyed over 88,000 peer-reviewed papers and found 99.9% agreement that climate change is mainly caused by humans.

99.9% is such a fluke! I mean - WHAT are the chances!?! But seriously though. I'm with the 99.9% of scientists. The laws of physics are real. That's why 5 years after the first flood, when a "100 year storm" hit that backyard again - that basement was bone dry.