While everyone in town was running over to Regency Heritage Park taking pictures of the river another disaster was unfolding across town in Wildomar. A Manhole cover was popping up.

Not the actual cover but you get the idea.

This little noticed event occurred on Prairie Road in the Windsong Tract.

This drainage system consist of what is shown as 2 Reinforced Concrete Pipes (RCP), one of these is 5 feet in diameter, that run the length of Praire Road. There are shown to be 7 openings to allow water to enter this system (4 located at the north end, 3 in a dirt field with one as a curb drain) with 2 exit points, located in Windsong Park, that empty into what is referred to as Lateral C by Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.

Riverside County Flood Control Drawing done October 2013

Above I mentioned the words “is shown” because at this point in time the 60 inch line is in the process of being cleaned out. The other has not been located as of yet.

The city was hoping to complete the job using a dustbuster like this one.

Instead we had to get something a little bigger.

This is the truck that started the job.

After opening up the access points it looks like we are going to need something even larger and a lot more money.

This process will take several days as this line has been neglected for approximately 14 years according to neighbors who have lived on the street since purchasing their homes newly built.

This is one opening up the street from the park. It looks to be fairly clean.

This opening at the south end of the park has about 6 inches of daylight. In other words its full of it.

Full of it equals approximately 1000 linear feet of 56 inch storm drain that is anywhere from 1/2 full at each end to completely full somewhere in the middle. This amounts to anywhere from 8,000 cu. ft. to 17,000 cu. ft. of dirt.

After the clean out a camera will be inserted into this first line in order to ascertain its integrity and soundness. This video process will also determine if the lateral from Raspberry Lane connects to this line or if it is a separate line in its own right.
As the clean out process progresses I will update this post with new pictures, hopefully the city doesn’t run out of money before this one line can be cleaned.