diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/LocalDirAllocator.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/LocalDirAllocator.java
index 774e015b37..d8ab16f41d 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/LocalDirAllocator.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/LocalDirAllocator.java
@@ -414,7 +414,14 @@ public Path getLocalPathForWrite(String pathStr, long size,
         
             //build the "roulette wheel"
         for(int i =0; i < ctx.dirDF.length; ++i) {
-          availableOnDisk[i] = ctx.dirDF[i].getAvailable();
+          final DF target = ctx.dirDF[i];
+          // attempt to recreate the dir so that getAvailable() is valid
+          // if it fails, getAvailable() will return 0, so the dir will
+          // be declared unavailable.
+          // return value is logged at debug to keep spotbugs quiet.
+          final boolean b = new File(target.getDirPath()).mkdirs();
+          LOG.debug("mkdirs of {}={}", target, b);
+          availableOnDisk[i] = target.getAvailable();
           totalAvailable += availableOnDisk[i];
         }
 
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalDirAllocator.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalDirAllocator.java
index 939881f39d..3693b4f0ac 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalDirAllocator.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalDirAllocator.java
@@ -548,5 +548,24 @@ public void testGetLocalPathForWriteForLessSpace() throws Exception {
             "p1/x", Long.MAX_VALUE - 1), "Expect a DiskErrorException.",
         () -> dirAllocator.getLocalPathForWrite("p1/x", Long.MAX_VALUE - 1, conf));
   }
+
+  /**
+   * Test for HADOOP-18636 LocalDirAllocator cannot recover from directory tree deletion.
+   */
+  @Test(timeout = 30000)
+  public void testDirectoryRecovery() throws Throwable {
+    String dir0 = buildBufferDir(ROOT, 0);
+    String subdir = dir0 + "/subdir1/subdir2";
+
+    conf.set(CONTEXT, subdir);
+    // get local path and an ancestor
+    final Path pathForWrite = dirAllocator.getLocalPathForWrite("file", -1, conf);
+    final Path ancestor = pathForWrite.getParent().getParent();
+
+    // delete that ancestor
+    localFs.delete(ancestor, true);
+    // and expect to get a new file back
+    dirAllocator.getLocalPathForWrite("file2", -1, conf);
+  }
 }