Continuous rain will impact lakes in Austin

The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) says this historic flood in Austin is a dynamic situation and conditions are rapidly changing. 

Kathy Johnston has been living on Edgewater Drive for 25 years. A home where hundreds of memories have been made, could be at risk for damage.

LCRA says large amounts of water are moving into lakes in Central Texas and folks need to take every precaution to be careful. She says in 2007, four flood gates were open in Mansfield Dam, which ended up flowing into her backyard.

“Well this is not common. This is only the second time in 20 years of being on the lakefront that it has come up in our yard at all,” Johnston says.

So now that eight gates are open, the outcome makes her family very anxious.

“The first thing we did was we reached out to the neighbors that we either knew that were out of town or not living in their residence right now and made sure their boats were secure or secure as possible. And if there was anything else needed to help them out we did it,” she says.

LCRA says water flowing from Lake Buchanan will flow into Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, then Lake Travis, then Lake Austin and Lady Bird Lake. Lake Travis is more than 100% full and now well into its flood pool. “Some disasters people have no forewarning or they have very little. So I think we’re blessed that we’ve known for three or four days that things were flooding terribly and that it probably was ultimately going to impact us.”

Johnston says she and her husband are thinking ahead of a quick plan, which includes going to a home they rent out to others year round, which is more elevated and further away from the lake. “Keep those who have property by the water. You can save property or replace property but you can never replace a life so we all need to just stay safe,” she adds.