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The one-percent grade to the soils in the area should have been greater.
In some circumstances, nothing can be done with runoff and its results, except to get out of the way. On June 27, 1995, Madison County was hit with 30 inches of rain in 16 hours, this after four or five days of steady rain. Rain-saturated mountainsides began slipping in fastmoving landslides called debris flows. One, near Graves Mill, was estimated to be traveling at a speed approaching 20 miles per hour. In some cases, such debris flows have reached 35 miles per hour or more. And, a NOAA press release of August 1999, notes that, “In eight hours, 28 inches of rain deluged Nelson County, Va., an amount that more than tripled the state’s 24 hour record-set by a 1942 hurricane-and has not been broken since.”
Since 1844, there have been over 50 such debris-flow events in Virginia, most of them in the Blue Ridge area. Building on steep slopes has its risks.
Thus, handling runoff has always been a challenge to developers, engineers, highway designers, farmers, and even homeowners.
Two things are required to cope with and mitigate runoff. First, you have to collect it. Second, you have to get rid of it. For example, on your house, the
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