Floodgates open across Central Texas

AUSTIN, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - The floodgates are open.

“We’ve had a significant amount of rain fall in our watershed over the past week. As many of our central Texans are aware we’ve had some regional sized flooding throughout the Colorado River system,” said John Hoffmann the LCRS executive Vice President.

The Lower Colorado River Authority spent Thursday opening floodgates across the area.

For the Tom Miller Dam, they plan to partially open 2 flood gates and further up north at Mansfield they plan to open 1 flood gate. At Inks Lake, they expect the water to overflow as there are no flood gates and at the Buchanan Dam they plan to partially open one gate.

Hoffmann said the only dam with a gate completely open is at Mansfield. “This one flood gate operation will have a minimal impact on what’s going on down stream,” said Hoffmann.

According to the LCRA, waters levels are not only high because of the amount of recent rains but also because of the major flood event Central Texas saw last fall. “What we saw in October filled our lakes up and so we were sitting full when this event started,” said Hoffmann.

Because the LCRA is opening these gates as a precaution to prevent flooding, FOX 7 Austin asked if areas hit hard last fall like graveyard point should be concerned.

“Right now the level at Lake Travis is a couple feet below where the folks at graveyard point begin to be impacted by it,” said Hoffmann. While Hoffman said there are no plans to open anymore floodgates, with even more rain on the way he said anything could change.

Right now they are closing a part of north Lake Travis to boaters at night because all the debris in the area. They are worried people out on the water might accidentally hit it and get hurt.