Hereford was first called Blue Water, after Tierra Blanca Creek a mile south of town. In late May 2023 that creek ran over U.S. Highway 385 in Hereford.
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Hereford was first called Blue Water, after Tierra Blanca Creek a mile south of town. In late May 2023 that creek ran over U.S. Highway 385 in Hereford.
When the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway was finished from Amarillo to Farwell in 1899, a town grew up beside it that residents first named Blue Water, for the waters of Tierra Blanca Creek one mile south. The post office already had a Blue Water in Texas, so the name became Hereford, after the cattle local ranchers brought in.
The creek itself, according to the Handbook of Texas, rises in Curry County, New Mexico, crosses southern Deaf Smith and Randall counties, and joins Palo Duro Creek east of Canyon. Along the way it passes flat country with shallow depressions and clay loam soils.
Hereford grew up on groundwater -- by 1904 it was called the Windmill City for the roughly 400 windmills around it, and in 1910 D. L. McDonald sank the first successful irrigation well into the Ogallala Aquifer north of town. Water underground was the draw. Water on the surface has always been the nuisance.
The National Weather Service office in Amarillo recorded major flash flooding in the Hereford area on May 27, 2023, with more than 2 inches of rain falling in just 40 minutes. Some isolated spots outside town saw over 8 inches. NWS photos from that stretch show Tierra Blanca Creek over U.S. 385 in Hereford and flooding at the town's municipal golf course.
That's the storm a drainage plan here has to be built for. An inch spread over a morning is easy. Two inches in forty minutes overwhelms gutters, fills every low spot at once, and shows you exactly where your lot was graded wrong.
It also wasn't a one-day event. NWS reported that by the end of that May, many locations across the Panhandles had picked up somewhere between 6 and 14 inches for the month, and most of the region had already passed half its normal annual rainfall by June 1. Soil that wet has no room left, so each new storm runs off almost entirely.
The full range of fixes, chosen for what your lot is actually doing — start with why yards here hold water:
The NRCS type location for the Pullman series -- the reference spot where the official profile was described -- is in a field 11.5 miles north of Hereford on U.S. 385. Pullman clay loam is slowly permeable, sits on nearly level plains and playa slopes, and in the reference profile, cracks 5 millimeters or wider run from the surface down about 33 inches.
Those cracks are why a dry Hereford yard can swallow the first few minutes of a storm and then flood. Once the clay swells shut, infiltration nearly stops and everything else runs off or sits.
NRCS rates Pullman runoff as medium on slopes under 1 percent and high on slopes of 1 to 3 percent. Translated to a residential lot: even the gentle tilt most yards have is enough to send a lot of water somewhere fast, and the job is deciding where.
For Hereford properties we plan around peak flow, not the yearly average. That can mean a French drain with enough capacity to keep up with a fast storm, surface inlets at the true low points, and -- on lots with no usable fall to the street -- a sump to move water out mechanically.
If you want the longer explanation of why High Plains clay floods the way it does, read why yards flood in Amarillo; the Pullman series was first established in Potter County in 1929.
Amarillo Drainage Pros covers the wider Panhandle, from Canyon to Deaf Smith County. We aren't based in Hereford and won't claim to be. Call (806) 606-0904 about your Hereford yard. We'll get back to you to pick a time for a free on-site assessment, and you're under no obligation.
Free on-site drainage assessments in Hereford and across the Panhandle. Call or send the form and we’ll set up a time to look.