Yard & Surface Drainage in Amarillo, TX

Standing water on top of the grass, a slick across the patio, a muddy stripe along the back fence: that is surface water, and it calls for a different set of tools than water trapped in the soil. Surface drainage grabs it where it collects and moves it somewhere it can leave.

Amarillo rain arrives in bursts

The National Weather Service puts Amarillo's average yearly precipitation at 19.71 inches, and three-fourths of it falls from April through September, generally with thunderstorms. Those warm-season storms often bring very heavy rain, and the NWS notes they can cause local flooding, particularly of roads and streets. Measurable rain shows up on only about 72 days a year, so a large share of the total comes in a limited number of hard downpours.

A yard that shrugs off a slow drizzle can be overwhelmed in a single afternoon storm, especially when the clay underneath is slow to take any of it in.

The tools for water on top

• Catch basins. A box with a grate set at the low point, tied into solid pipe that carries water away underground.
• Channel drains. Long, narrow grated troughs across a driveway, garage apron, or patio edge, where water runs as a sheet rather than gathering in one spot.
• Swales. Shallow, grassed dips that steer runoff around the house toward a collection point. They are low-key and easy to mow.
• Downspout tie-ins. Roof water carried in buried solid pipe instead of dumped at the foundation, where it does the most harm.
• An exit. Every piece above has to end at daylight, at a curb connection the city approves, or at a sump.

Look for the dam first

Amarillo's own history has a lesson here. In the spring of 1889 heavy rains nearly flooded the original townsite, and according to the Handbook of Texas, the railroad embankment kept the water from draining away, which pushed more residents toward higher ground to the east.

Most yards have a smaller version of that embankment. A raised flower bed, a patio poured an inch too high, a fence footing, a neighbor's new slab, a sidewalk that cuts across the natural flow. Before anything gets dug, we look for whatever is holding the water in, because sometimes removing or cutting through it beats building around it.

Grates, dust, and tumbleweeds

The NWS calls the Texas Panhandle one of the windiest regions in the country, with winds of 50 mph or more every year, often with blowing dust, plus a steady supply of tumbleweeds. A surface drain here has to be chosen with that in mind:

• Grates that lift out by hand so you can clear them after a windy week.
• Catch basins with room below the outlet pipe for grit to settle instead of washing down the line.
• Layouts that put inlets where you will actually see them, not under a shrub.

The city also asks residents not to blow leaves or grass clippings onto curbs or into gutters. That same debris is what plugs a yard inlet, so a little mowing discipline protects your drain too.

Flat lots need deliberate slope

A lot of Amarillo yards were left nearly level when the house went in. On ground like that, an inch of height one way or the other decides whether water reaches an inlet or puddles three feet short of it. We take elevations across the yard before we place anything, then set inlets and pipe to the numbers rather than to how the lawn looks.

On top, underneath, or both

Many yards here have both problems at once: water pooling on the surface during the storm and soggy clay that stays wet for days after. Catch basins handle the first, a French drain handles the second, and the two often share the same outlet line. Sometimes the simplest correction of all is reshaping the ground, which our grading and leveling page explains.