Caution....Road work ahead

Flashing lights and lots of orange lines and flags on the ground can only mean one thing, something is about to happen.  So you know me, I just went right up to the guy and said "Hey, whatcha doing?" 
As it turns out, all of the upcoming work is because the County is getting ready repave the roads from Solana all the way to Northgate Drive.  Yet before they can repave the roads, they have to solve the flooding problem in the neighborhood once and for all.  I've been here nearly 8 years and it seems that at least once a summer the neighborhood gets a rain so hard, so fast, and so overwhelming that the street floods from my office on the corner of Burning Tree and Solana all the way to the Clubhouse.  I'm talking serious flooding, like several inches over the crown of the road type flooding.



only a few inches from the center of those 20 inch wheels

The reason the road floods is because a large number of the houses in the neighborhood have illegally filled in the drainage swales along the side the road.  Also, a large number of houses that did get permits to fill in the drainage swales did it so long ago using galvanized drainage pipe that the pipe has deteriorated and collapsed shutting down water flow.  For example this yard.  When it rains, there is no place for the water to go as the swale along side of the road was filled in.  Additionally, there is a drainage inlet in the yard, but the grass is so tall that the water in the road cannot get to it.  So the road itself then turns into the drainage swale.

The results of all this filling in the swales and failed piping has turned the roadway into the drainage channel. 



between 3 & 16 green after a heavy downpour

Fixing the drainage problem and repaving the road will be a good thing for the Club when its done.  The process however will take some time and probably will upset some of the homeowners in our neighborhood that come home and now have a drainage swale across their yard where it was grass before.  So if someone asks be sure to tell them the road project has nothing to do with the Club!!!  We did not request the drainage improvement.  It all has to do with the County needing to pave the streets and they can't until they can get the water off the road.