Bothell-transplant Norvin Knight is jokingly considering a cattail garden at his new Dungeness home.

He moved into his three-bedroom home in November on Bud’s Way off Nisbet Road and for the past month water has surrounded his and neighbors’ homes.

From Hogback Road looking south, the water stretches across the neighborhood and up to Knight’s garage.

Going closer to Knight’s home along the private roads, standing water and muddy driveways become increasingly prevalent. Knight and neighbors say water just started to recede.

“I’m just baffled,” Knight said. “The frustrating thing is that you can’t pump it anywhere.”

Knight said the 100-year flood plain goes by his tree line about 100 feet from the house and the water wasn’t at the level it is today at Christmastime.

Neville Atkin, who lives south of Knight, said he moved there in 1998 and flooding “has never been this bad.”

“I have two acres of lake,” he said.

Record rainfall may be to partially blame. On average, the Sequim-Dungeness area saw 23.07 inches of rainfall in 2015 with more than 6 inches of that coming in December.

Dave Lasorsa, environmental coordinator for Clallam County Public Works, went out with fellow county staffers in early March at the request of residents seeking solutions. Their hands were tied though as impacted roads in the area are mostly private, Lasorsa said.

“I feel sorry for those folks,” he said. “I wish there was something the county could do for them.”

Lasorsa said a failed housing development in the early 1990s may have partially led to flooding issues in the area.

During construction, an aquifer was punctured leading one underground water layer to the next, which now leads to the enclosed basin where Knight lives.

Over time, the development was split into several short plats and surveys, and a possible drainage plan for the whole area was abandoned and never pursued among the smaller plats, Lasorsa said.

“Development was so piecemeal that there’s not much we could do,” he said.

Clallam County Engineer Ross Tyler said flooding in 2009 led staff to upgrade the culvert going from the basin under Lotsgezell Road and countersink it another foot.

“The area is just unfortunately at the bottom of everything,” Tyler said. “There’s nothing in that area it can drain to.”

Lasorsa said along with no outlet for the water, the soil type has no infiltration either.

Record rain led culverts intended to go south to north to reverse flow back toward homes, he said.

One household on Green Valley Lane off Dungeness Greens Way and Hogback Road installed a pump to take water from its yard to the center that seems to be working, Lasorsa said.

However, the water is pumped toward the area flooding Knight’s home.

The idea of the pump, Lasorsa said, is to place water in the center of the basin, which in turn drains to the wetland under Hogback Road but the water became so high recently it came back onto the properties rather than draining.

Lasorsa said in his research he discovered a company named Polaris performed a flood plain study in 1997 for nine potential lots on Bud’s Way and Knight and neighbors homes were built near a potential flood zone, so they designated it an open space.

He said the basin saw similar flooding issues in 1996-1997 and 2001 but the area hasn’t been designated a flood plain despite an attempt by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to categorize it as such in the mid-1990s. It was dropped for unknown reasons, Lasorsa said.

Greg McCarry, CEO and owner of Westerra Homes, said he is building a custom home on Green Valley Lane and the water peaked about four weeks ago.

Neighbors warned him that water sometimes comes up on the front of the property, so they moved the home to the back of the property and built the foundation 1½ feet higher.

“We’re lucky we warned,” he said. “We were able to construct the way the owner wanted with minimal impact.”

Steve Gray, deputy director and planning manager of Clallam County of Department of Community Development, said despite flooding, county staff haven’t proposed any moratoriums on new developments or septic tanks in the area. County staff did recommend a drainage plan for residents but have not heard back from the homeowners association, he said.

Lasorsa said one solution for homes on Green Valley Lane could be to create a berm across the backside of neighboring properties for additional drainage so that the water doesn’t come up from the backside.

As for future developments, he recommends McCarry’s course of action building close to the hillside and on high foundations.

Those down closer to the water like Knight will have to wait out the water.

Knight said he was planning to sell a hot tub but the water is so high he can’t get a truck down there to remove it.

“(With flooding) that’s just the odds,” he said. “You play the odds in everything you do.”