Storm brings damage to Austin area

AUSTIN, Texas – Lake LBJ, Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Travis and Lake Austin are all considered the Highland Lakes chain. 

The Lower Colorado River Authority was working around the clock with floodgate operations Tuesday, to keep those lakes from overflowing.

The more the water comes in, particularly on these reservoirs that don’t have any flood storage like Lake LBJ, you have to match the water going out with the water going in,” said John Hofmann, executive vice-president for Water at LCRA. 

The LCRA says Lake Travis will likely rise a couple of feet due to the operations.

“We had a flow rate that was equivalent to 67 Olympic-sized swimming pools every minute coming down the Llano River into Lake LBJ.  So our operations responded to that.  So far since then we haven’t seen those kinds of flows out into the Colorado River watershed,” said Hofmann.

Llano County saw significant flooding, however, Travis County had some trouble spots as well. 

By afternoon, Spicewood Springs Road was still overflowing with water from Bull Creek. The city reopened the roads after being closed for hours earlier in the morning.

On Lake Austin Boulevard, crews worked all afternoon to remove a tree that was down in the middle of the road. By evening, there were very few closures left in Austin, but still a few in Williamson County. 

Because of the pace the storm moved through Austin, many residents were able to dodge a huge flooding event.