Two of the soils the NRCS uses to describe this part of the High Plains were defined within a few miles of Panhandle. One drains slowly; the other is a playa floor. Which one you're near changes the fix.
Tell us what the water is doing and we’ll call you back to set up a free on-site look.
Two of the soils the NRCS uses to describe this part of the High Plains were defined within a few miles of Panhandle. One drains slowly; the other is a playa floor. Which one you're near changes the fix.
The type location for the Pantex series, the reference sample the NRCS describes every other Pantex soil against, is a field about 1.1 miles northeast of Panhandle on U.S. Highway 60. Pantex soils were formerly lumped in with the Pullman series and were established as their own series from the Carson County soil survey in 1991. They are very deep, slowly permeable, and when dry they open cracks more than 20 inches deep.
The survey still rates Pantex 'well drained,' which in soil-science terms means the ground doesn't stay waterlogged, not that it swallows a thunderstorm. Pantex is mapped on broad plains with slopes mostly between 0.2 and 0.8 percent. Across a 100-foot backyard that works out to roughly 2 to 10 inches of total fall, and a raised flowerbed or a thick patio pour can erase it.
Go about 4.3 miles southwest of town on U.S. 60, then south on a county road, and you reach the type location of the McLean series, a clay on the floor of a playa. McLean also came out of the Carson County survey, in 1995. The NRCS describes these basins as sitting 5 to 75 feet below the surrounding plain and ranging from a few acres to more than 200, with soils that are somewhat poorly drained, very slowly permeable, and occasionally ponded for brief to long periods.
If your property edges toward one of those basins, rain that lands on the field next door is headed your way. That's runoff you can't stop at the fence line; you can only steer it around the house. A shallow swale and a surface drain along the uphill side usually do more than a trench at the low spot.
The full range of fixes, chosen for what your lot is actually doing — start with why yards here hold water:
Panhandle was platted in January 1888 as the terminus of the Southern Kansas Railway and became the Carson County seat that same year. The 1920s oil boom pushed its population to 2,035 by 1930, and voters approved bonds for a modern water and sewer system and paved streets. The Depression made those 'Boom Bonds' hard to carry, and the Handbook of Texas says the city didn't clear the debt until 1965.
The older blocks date to that railroad plat and those boom years. Curbs and driveway aprons on older streets can have been re-poured more than once, which changes where gutter water goes, so we check the street side of a lot as carefully as the backyard.
We begin with the roof, because gutters and downspouts decide where most of a lot's water first lands. Then we shoot the grade from the slab outward and find the low point the water is heading for. On Pantex ground that might be a soggy strip along a fence; near a McLean basin it might be the whole back of the property. The answer can be regrading, a French drain, or both, and we'll explain which before you commit to anything.
Carson County averages roughly 21 inches of rain a year on prairie the Handbook describes as surfaced by dark clay and loam, and that clay decides how your yard behaves. We'll look at where the water comes from, where it can be sent without landing on a neighbor, and what it takes to get it there. Call (806) 606-0904 to request a free, no-obligation assessment anywhere in Panhandle, and we'll phone you back to pick a time. Heading toward the city? Our Amarillo page covers it.
Free on-site drainage assessments in Panhandle and across the Panhandle. Call or send the form and we’ll set up a time to look.