After sealing the north side of the garage, an engineer came over and kindly wrote up the specs for an excavator to remove the dirt around my and my neighbor's garages.

 

Now, the water rushes between our two garages and around the back and into Sugar Creek. 

NO MORE FLOODED GARAGE!

 Some of the dirt was used to fill an empty cistern which was dangerous. The smashed the cistern

and then filled it in. The house is a wee bit more safe for doing this.

After removing three dump trucks of dirt it became clear I now had to build a retaining wall.

A so-called quick DIY job took three weeks!