Canyon sits where two creeks join to start the Prairie Dog Town Fork, so storm water around town is always headed somewhere. The job is keeping it off your slab on the way.
Tell us what the water is doing and we’ll call you back to set up a free on-site look.
Canyon sits where two creeks join to start the Prairie Dog Town Fork, so storm water around town is always headed somewhere. The job is keeping it off your slab on the way.
Tierra Blanca Creek runs east-northeast across southern Randall County and joins Palo Duro Creek just east of Canyon, near the old T Anchor Ranch headquarters. The Handbook of Texas marks that junction as the beginning of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, the stream that carved the canyon the town was named for. A smaller reservoir, McSpadden Lake, sits on the Tierra Blanca southeast of downtown.
That makes Canyon a creek town on the High Plains, which is a different problem from a closed playa basin. Runoff on the edges of town is moving toward a channel, and properties nearest those drainageways see it arrive first.
The NWS Amarillo office documented a late-May into early-June stretch of storms in which the Canyon and Umbarger area took 3 to 5 inches of rain on the evening and overnight of May 31. Tierra Blanca Creek, Palo Duro Creek and the Prairie Dog Town Fork all flooded, Palo Duro Canyon State Park closed, and Southeast Park in Canyon shut down with water across most of its ballfields and dog park. Flash flooding in Canyon and Amarillo swept cars off roadways.
Nobody can drain a yard against a creek in flood, and we won't pretend otherwise. What you can control is your own roof and lot water, so a storm like that doesn't stack local runoff against your foundation on top of whatever the channels are doing. In most Canyon yards that starts with gutters and surface drainage, not a trench.
The full range of fixes, chosen for what your lot is actually doing — start with why yards here hold water:
During its Randall County soil survey work the NRCS set up a new series, Lockney clay, established in 1995 with its type location about 7 miles south of Canyon on Highway 87 and then east on Hungate Road. Lockney forms on the step of large playa basins, has very slow permeability, and is occasionally ponded for very brief periods. When it dries, cracks half an inch to three inches wide open from the surface to 40 inches or more, and they stay open roughly 150 to 210 days in most years.
Clay that opens that wide in a dry spell and closes when it's wet is working on your foundation every season. If you're on the south side of town, or anywhere the ground turns dark and sticky after rain, ask about foundation drainage that evens out how wet the soil at your slab gets from one season to the next.
Canyon put in its first waterworks and sewer system in 1909, the same year a brick courthouse replaced the frame one. West Texas A&M University began as a normal college on forty acres donated by founder Lincoln Guy Conner, and by 1987 new developments such as Hunsley Hills were going in just north of town. The Handbook counts 14,836 residents in 2020.
Around the square and the university you'll find older lots whose grades have shifted with a century of use. Farther out, on the north side, many lots still carry the grade their builder left. We bring a different checklist to each.
Tell us whether the water comes from your roof, a neighbor's lot or the street, and where it stands after a storm. We'll ring you back to arrange a visit, walk the property with you, and explain what we'd do and why. The on-site assessment in Canyon is free and carries no obligation; call (806) 606-0904. Closer to the city? See our Amarillo page.
Free on-site drainage assessments in Canyon and across the Panhandle. Call or send the form and we’ll set up a time to look.