Flooding swamps Central Texas, leads to evacuations

[Truthiness Inspector]

Source: Houston Chronicle

MARBLE FALLS, Texas — Heavy storms dumped up to 18 inches of rain on Central Texas overnight, sending floodwaters through several Hill Country towns Wednesday and leaving dozens of people on rooftops, cars and in trees.

No fatalities were immediately reported in the latest series of unusual summertime Texas storms, which have killed at least 11 people in the past week and a half. The downpour and winds were so treacherous early Wednesday that helicopters were forced to abruptly halt efforts to rescue people from rooftops.

Rains were heaviest in the Marble Falls area, about 40 miles northwest of Austin, where Mayor Raymond Whitman said there were 32 high-water rescues. Other Austin-area officials said there were reports of as many as 20 people needing to be saved from high waters.

"I'll be pleasantly surprised if we don't end up with some fatalities over this," said Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services spokesman Warren Hassinger.

Hassinger said four rescue attempts before dawn were abandoned because of weather, and he didn't know what happened to the people needing help. One aborted rescue had attempted to get four people from the roof of a house in Granite Shoals, where water was about 4 feet from the top of the building.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/4925212.html

[redqueen]

1. we've had fatalities up here

in N. Tx... several in England too

[jobycom]

2. Freakin' central Texas.

We go straight from floods to droughts to floods. Seven or eight years ago everything was flooding, then we've had constant drought since then, and now we have floods again. Sometimes it happens in the same year, when we have constant rainfall until the end of June, then literally three months without a drop of rain.

This place is crazy! People build on cliffs over Lake Travis. Some years the water is fifty feet below their houses, and their floating docks dangle high above the water from where they are tethered to the cliff. Other years their houses are flooded.

[SayWhatYo]

7. When I first came to austin(last November), there was hardly no water in lake travis...

I drove by it yesterday and was surprised how much it filled up... There were places that had absolutely no water at all, but now you can easily take boat over it.

[jobycom]

8. That has to do with the dams and flood control, as much as the rain

The LCRA controls the lake levels, and they have committments to towns downriver to provide a certain amount of water, so they drain Travis and Buchanan to fill up Town Lake and to allow enough water to flow to places like Gonzales. Right now they have the opposite problem--they can't let too much water through or it will flood places like Gonzales. It's still amazing how much water can flow into Travis and Buchanan in such a short time.

[SayWhatYo]

10. Ahhh, cool. Thanks for the info..

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. It was bad last night

We set records for highest amount of rainfall in such a short timespan. We were so lucky that no one died in all the flooding.

One man did drown but he was resuscitated after being helicoptered off a roof.

[TexasLady]

4. My sons friends had to keep turning around last night

while driving, to avoid the high standing water on the roads. It hasnt rained since this morning, but we have a 70 percent chance later this afternoon, and all the way into tomorrow.

Luckily we are way up on a hill, so its just puddles in the yard. Unfortunately, my white car is a godawful shade of tan..the color of the dirt road we live on, that has switched to mud. (In fact, I saw this once in an email, I took my finger and wrote on my car..in allthe dried mud.."I wish my husband was this dirty' lol :D )

My house got about 7 inches the last 36 hours. My neighbors in Burnet, where my BIL and SIL live, got 20 in. They were told to stay in their homes today, because of all the road closures.

All Texans are used to mid 90s this time of year, and cracked ground from the heat and dryness. This is nuts, yall!

[cliss]

6. Please stay safe.

Have bottled water, candles, lantern & all that stuff
Our thoughts will be with you.

[rainbow4321]

5. We keep hearing of kids drowning after they get playing in flooded streams

News was saying that with school out there are lots of kids outdoors who head for their neighborhoods' flooded streams to play in the rough waters..latest was a 13 yr old boy in Garland last night.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/062707dnmetrain.39cebbe.html

In Garland, the rushing waters of Duck Creek swept away a 13-year-old boy, identified by police as William Griffin, who was playing with a friend, said Garland fire spokesman Merrill Balanciere. Rescuers threw the boy a rope, but he couldn't grasp it and vanished downstream shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday. He was found about two hours later after an intense search. Paramedics performed CPR and took him to a hospital, where he was declared dead.

<snip>

Some Hood County residents were being rescued using boats and personal watercraft, and Mr. Rash said that state officials were sending additional resources to hard-hit areas like Lake Granbury Harbor, about 60 miles southwest of Dallas.

Rescuers used boats and jet skis to help evacuate at least 50 homes in a subdivision late Tuesday as Robinson Creek spilled out of its banks in the Granbury area.

<snip>
This has been one of the wettest Junes on record. So far, rain has fallen at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on 15 days this month, with totals nearing 9 inches, three times the usual amount.

[Name removed]

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