The first photo on this page is pretty startling:
Is this a case of a particularly stubborn homeowner refusing to move, or is this a common protection measure? Does anyone know more on their story?
The phrase you’re looking for is ring dike. They’re pretty common on rural floodplains.
Not the only such photo I’ve seen. There was one in which the landowner had a moat inside the ring dike, from which came the earth to make the dike. He had a tractor PTO running a heavy duty pump to transfer water which leaked thru the dike (into the moat) back out to the far side of the dike.
Looking at pic #4, I wonder whether that girl is really named “Brittany Pearce” or if she just gave them a fake name from Glee.
Thread about a guy in Arkansas that built a berm around his house.
Smart idea if you can get enough people to help build it.
I don’t understand why water doesn’t seep up from beneath the ring dikes. Surely this can’t be so different than my basement with a sump pump: if the pump shuts off, water rises from below.
Water does seep under the homemade dikes. They pump it back out. That one guy in the thread I posted used his tractor to power the pump.
There was a big flood in Missouri back in 1993. I remember seeing pictures of ring dykes during that.
Farm plus tractor plus advance notice = levee. What else does the farmer have to do with his time?