Rant: Almost lost a whole excavation unit to a rainstorm last month

I was out at a site near Santa Fe and left the tarp tied loose overnight came back to find 3 feet of water in the pit and the profile walls starting to collapse. Had to spend the whole next day digging drains and re-stabilizing the trench face, anyone else had a dig go sideways from weather?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_emma10d ago

I had the same thing happen at a site in New Mexico back in 2018. After that I started using sandbags around the tarp edges and digging a shallow trench uphill from the unit to divert runoff before it ever hits the pit. It saved me at least twice since then when we got surprise monsoon rains. Also, I switched to those heavy duty construction tarps with the reinforced corners and grommets, they hold up way better in wind than the cheap blue ones. Now I never leave a pit without that drainage channel, it takes ten extra minutes but saves hours of cleanup.

hayden_nelson8510d ago

Wait, you're really digging a trench and hauling sandbags to job sites? Not gonna lie, I used to think that was overkill for a simple pit cover. But last summer we had a flash flood that turned a 15-minute tarp setup into a 3-hour mud-fest, and I started wondering if I was the lazy one. Now I'm thinking I should grab some of those heavy duty tarps and give the trench thing a shot, because that story about surprise monsoons hits close to home after that mess.

lucasw8210d ago

Yeah but then what do you do when the rain catches you off guard and you didn't get that trench dug in time... I started keeping a spare pump in my truck after a similar close call, just a little submersible one that runs off a battery pack. It's saved me twice now when the water came faster than I could dig.