New french drain system
When we bought our house back in 1991 we failed to notice that we were the low spot on the street so when it rains all the water from the neighborhood drains into our yard. I built planting beds three feet out all the way around the house, this kept the water away from our foundation (and out of our basement). But any big rain (much less a hurricane) turned our side and back yards into "Lake Walker." We got a landscaping expert out to look at the problem, he was hoping to simply regrade the lawn but after he saw the pictures below he opined that a more drastic solution was required. I'm not particularly fond of the French but in this case...

The problem - Lake Walker on the side of our house after a decent rain. Adding to the problem is that our sump pump and our downspouts also drained to the side yard. I installed plastic pipes to move that water to the front yard but the main issue remained.

One of our backyard corners, more water from the downspouts.

Standing water along the edge of a retaining wall we put up in the backyard.

The other corner of our backyard.

The solution - a french drain. First step was digging a foot deep/wide trench all along the back and side our house. My neighbors looked on in shock and awe but no complains, they are the best!!

Tieing our sump pump drain and downspouts into the new french drain system.

About a ton of gravel lines the bottom of the entire trench to facilitate drainage. Note the wonderful Maryland clay and rock soil base, lovely!

Fabric liner with flexible plastic tubing on top of the gravel in the trench.

Tieing in the gutter downspouts in the backyard.

The result - the next big rain came through and the water simple ran away. We had a little spot in the backyard that we noticed puddled a little bit. The landscapers took care of this a couple months later. They regraded the backyard slightly, installed a couple more drains, then put down sod across the entire backyard and reseeded along both sides of the house. By next spring it should look good as new! And no water issues!!

Resodded backyard.

Reseeded sideyard. It was pretty late in the year (early November) when they reseeded, the assumption was the grass would all come up in the spring. Much to our surprise some of the seed germinated. Who knew we would have a week or so of 70 degree temperatures before it got cold?

Pop-up valve at end of drain. Water pressure (or lack thereof) opens and closes it automatically. A little bit of erosion at the end, that will be fixed once the grass grows back in...