YORBA LINDA : New Drains Weighed for Flood-Prone Area

Whenever the weather forecast calls for heavy rain, Paula and Buddy DuBois brace themselves for a flood of water and debris into the back yard of their house on Tucana Street.

Their plight might not be unusual in a hillside community, but the DuBoises live on the relatively flat west side of Yorba Linda. Along with more than a dozen of their neighbors, the couple say, they are victims of an inadequate drainage system that funnels water from several surrounding properties, including a nearby horse trail.

To deal with the problem, the City Council is considering residents’ requests to install a storm-drain system in the area. The city has already completed a preliminary report on the project, estimated to cost about $250,000.

The council also added the neighborhood to a city tour today aimed at identifying future capital-improvement projects.

Michael Frazier, an architect who is a neighbor of the DuBoises, said that when the neighborhood was built in the 1960s, it was designed so that runoff water would drain through the streets into a central collection point near Yorba Linda Boulevard.

That was probably adequate when the area was mostly rural, Frazier said. But because of development and changes in the grading and landscaping--specifically, the paving of El Cajon bike and equestrian trail--water is channeled right into back yards.