The Ellerbe Creek Restoration

This is the section of Ellerbe Creek that I see from my porch. It sits directly across the street on the edge of Northgate Park. In this picture you're looking at a section of the creek that was restored during the winter of 2008/2009. Those gently sloping banks are part of the restoration. This section of the creek used to look like a deep V cut into the ground with the creek running some 14 feet down its steep banks. It got that way over the years because large volumes of fast moving stormwater collasped sections of the upper banks creating the V shape. That soil washed down the creek and some of it ended up in Falls Lake, a source of drinking water for the city of Raleigh.

During a heavy storm event of some duration, the creek would become a river and then slowly flood out to cover the entire park before it crept across the road and into our yards. We lost a good family down the street when they sold their house after the basement had been flooded twice in one summer. The FEMA flood map has been revised to expand the size of the flood zone in this area.

It didn't used to flood that badly but when a lot of development was done upstream with large expanses of parking lot, the volume of water increased. Whole forested areas became shopping centers. Housing developments also added to the impervious surfaces with roads, sidewalks and rooftops. We could have mitigated more than half that volume of water if those houses had added raingardens to their yards........And that is why I have a rain garden blog, to help others see what we each can do to help solve the problem.