Llano River Flood Waters lower but continue to surge

LLANO COUNTY, Texas - Storm water poured down the Llano River Tuesday morning and pushed toward Kingsland.

The water swamped RR 307 although the flood level had dropped a bit by mid morning. It churned and spilled into Lake LBJSeveral Local residents came out to take a look.

It was a sight simply too hard to ignore and something to worry about.

“Yeah, a little bit but is not as bad as it has been,” said Robert Hostetler.

Robert and Cindy Hostetler praises the LCRA for minimizing the damage. An early decision was made to open Starkey Dam and Wertz Dam. The move lowered water levels on the Llano before the flood surge arrived .The operation continued through the day, keeping the pressure upstream from becoming unmanageable. 

“The flood gates, our family has been in a little house by the 2900 bridge since the 1960’s, so we’ve seen wooden docks demolished by heavy rains like this so we came up concern that might happen again,” said. Indy Hostetler.

Video taken Monday showed a wall of water that moved from Junction on Monday. The nearly dry river bed was quickly overwhelmed by muddy debris as the flood grew larger and flowed past Mason; under the hwy 87 bridge.

Shortly before noon Tuesday morning a 2nd strong line of storms move through. It brought new concerns; and not just a out river flooding.

Strong winds pushed swirling clouds over Kingsland. As the storms rolled toward Burnet and Marble Falls, Brief -but intense downpours caused some localized flooding. Water filled yards near Buchanan Dam. A few neighborhood roadways were also flooded. that didn’t stop a couple a drivers who decided to roll on through.

In Llano the spillway just before the river Bridged seemed to be holding up to the waves that poured over it. Among those to watch the power of Mother Nature was Ryan Williams.
He told FOX-7 AUSTIN he was in Brady earlier in the day when the midday storm hit.

“I pulled over to the side of the road and let it go through, Ive got a 4 wheel drive vehicle but didn’t want to drive in it.So just a significant amount of rain,” said Williams.

Looking at the Spillway in Llano, Williams went on to say he has driven by it every week for the past 10 years and has never seen anything like this before.

Other residents say they remember the time in the late 90’s when flood waters nearly touched the road deck of the River bridge.