I have a 1942 colonial near Hartford, CT. It is a corner lot, and one of the streets I am on recently experienced a flash flood. Our house stayed dry, but we saw water up to three feet in the street and our yard flooded up to a foot or two. The water stopped closer to the house than I'd like. It drained within a few hours, but it was pretty crazy to see.
This was a fixer house, and one of our many projects was clearing out a treeline in our yard near the edge of the property to make more room before we put a fence in. We started this ourselves, but after the flood, we are reconsidering it and have halted the work.
I'd like to know if leaving the trees makes sense or not given that the area can flood. Some information is below:
- The trees are mostly smaller and younger with the exception of one, large, red oak.
- I'm not really sure of the density of the soil. It's pretty "good" soil to the best of my knowledge (in that plants grow very well in it), but I don't know what this says about it, exactly.
- The treeline is maybe 50-75 yards from my nearest structure (attached sunroom) on the side that floods.
- Flooding frequency is unknown. The neighbors said they hadn't seen it get to the point of flooding our yard in the two years they've lived there, but others have told us stories of cars being washed away on that street.
- We plan to put a fence in behind this treeline whether we take it down or not plus a raised bed garden in front of the treeline in the yard.
- There is poison ivy in the treeline, which is one reason we were clearing it, although mostly we were clearing it for aesthetic reasons and for the fence.
Please let me know any other information that would help!