Emergency Flooding: Temporary & Permanent Drainage Fixes

When the Water's Already Rising

Oregon's wet season doesn't always arrive gently. An atmospheric river can park over the Willamette Valley and dump weeks of rain in a couple of days, and suddenly the yard that was merely soggy is a pond creeping toward the house. When that's happening in real time, you need two different things: something to do right now to limit damage, and a plan to make sure it doesn't happen again.

This guide splits the two. First, the temporary emergency moves that protect your property during an active storm. Then, the permanent drainage fixes — regrading, swales, and drains — that address the underlying problem once the weather clears. The emergency measures buy you time; the permanent work is what actually solves it. For the full menu of permanent solutions, our property & site drainage in Oregon overview is the anchor.

Right Now: Temporary Emergency Measures

When water is actively threatening your home, the goal is simple — keep it away from the structure and move it toward lower ground. Safe, temporary steps:

• Sandbags or flood barriers around doors, garage thresholds, crawlspace vents, and low entry points to keep water from getting inside. Build them where water is trying to enter the structure.
• A portable pump or wet/dry vacuum to move standing water away from the house toward a lower area or the street, where allowed. Even a small utility pump can hold back a slow rise.
• Clear blocked drains and downspouts. A clogged catch basin, gutter, or downspout extension is a common reason water backs up during a storm. Pulling leaves and debris off a grate can restore flow fast.
• Redirect downspouts away from the foundation with temporary extensions if roof water is pooling against the house.
• Dig a temporary diversion — a shallow trench or channel to guide water away from the structure toward lower ground, if it can be done safely and on your own property.
• Move valuables up and out of crawlspaces, low garages, and basements that may take on water.

A few cautions: never work in or near moving floodwater, around downed power lines, or in conditions that put you at risk. Don't divert water onto a neighbor's property. And treat these as stopgaps — they protect the house during the event, but they don't fix the problem.

After the Storm: Diagnose Before You Fix

Once the water recedes, resist the urge to throw a quick fix at it. The right permanent solution depends on why it flooded, and storms reveal information you can use:

• Where did the water come from? Uphill runoff, roof water, a backed-up drain, or groundwater rising from below all call for different fixes.
• Where did it collect, and where did it want to go? The flow path during the storm shows you where to intercept and where to send water.
• How fast did it drain afterward? Quick to drain points to surface runoff; slow to drain suggests clay or a high water table.

This diagnosis is the bridge between the emergency and the cure. Our standing water drainage solutions guide walks through reading these clues so the permanent work targets the real cause rather than the symptom.

Permanent Fix 1: Regrading and Swales

The most fundamental permanent fix is shaping the land so water flows away from the house instead of toward it. If the storm pushed water at your foundation, there's a good chance the grade slopes the wrong way or a low spot collects runoff.

• Regrading establishes positive slope away from the structure, so future storm water heads away by default.
• A swale — a shallow graded channel — collects runoff and carries it to a safe outlet, intercepting water before it reaches the house.

Together, grading and a swale handle a large share of storm-flooding problems, especially the ones driven by uphill or surface runoff. They're surface-first solutions that work even in Oregon clay where infiltration won't.

Permanent Fix 2: Drains and Conveyance

Where grading alone can't capture all the water, drains feed it into pipe and carry it away:

• Area drains and catch basins capture water at low spots and storm-prone collection points, tied into solid pipe to an outlet.
• A French drain intercepts surface and near-surface water along a wet zone; see French drain cost in Oregon for how these are built and priced.
• Downspout conveyance routes roof water — often a major storm contributor — well away from the foundation on solid pipe.

The unifying requirement is a real outfall: every drain needs somewhere to send water, whether a daylight point downslope, a dry well, or a permitted storm connection. A drain with nowhere to go just relocates the puddle.

Permanent Fix 3: Protecting the Structure

If the storm threatened or entered a crawlspace or basement, the permanent fix often involves protecting the structure directly:

• Exterior footing drains at the base of the foundation collect water before it can push against or under the walls. Our foundation drain installation cost guide covers this.
• A sump system actively pumps out water on flat lots or where groundwater rises against the foundation.
• Regraded, well-routed downspouts keep roof water — a leading cause of foundation flooding — away from the walls.

Storm flooding that reaches the house is the strongest signal that foundation-protecting drainage is worth the investment, before the next atmospheric river arrives.

The PNW Reality: Plan for the Big Storm

Oregon's flooding risk isn't evenly spread through the year — it concentrates in intense wet-season events. Atmospheric rivers can deliver extraordinary rainfall in short windows, and a drainage system that handles ordinary rain may be overwhelmed by these peaks. Permanent drainage planning here should account for the big storm, not just the average day: adequate capacity, a reliable outfall, and structure protection sized for the conditions the PNW actually throws at it.

The owners who fare best are the ones who use one flooding event as the prompt to install permanent drainage before the next one — diagnosing the cause while the evidence is fresh and building a system that holds up to the season's worst.

From Emergency to Permanent Solution

Sandbags and a pump get you through the night. A properly designed drainage system gets you through the winter. Once you've weathered an active flood, the smart move is to act on what the storm revealed — diagnose the cause and install permanent drainage before the next event tests your luck again.

Our excavation services handle the permanent side: site evaluation after a flood, regrading, swales, drains, and foundation protection sized for Oregon's storms. Request a free assessment and we'll help you turn an emergency into a lasting fix. Treat the emergency tips here as general guidance — your safety comes first, and a site assessment guides the permanent work.