Lake Travis update

WANTED: Deep Hole

We are currently seeking a rather large, deep, dry hole. Hole will be used to temporarily store 88 billion gallons of water. If you have access to such a hole, or multiple holes with similar total capacity, please contact the LCRA via our website atThe Link Price will be negotiated based on capacity and proximity to the Colorado or Pedernales Rivers.
 
Lake up to 696 ft now... 15 ft above full.

I know we all were wishing for rain a few months ago but this is getting out of hand.
 
I have a crazy story about all this rain. Last night, after I got off work, I went over to a friends house. He then told me that he and another friend were going to help his dad move some building materials out of a house that had some water in it. I said I'd go along and so we drove out to Lago Vista. We get there, and the lake was in the freaking garage, up to our knees. The boat dock was a good 30-40 yards away. It has risen that much. Needless, to say, we got wet. We had to lug 50 bags of concrete over to the trailer, as well as lots of 2x4s. It was crazy to see the lake in the peoples house.
 
An update to a previous post.

The lowest the lake got during the recent drought was 643.55 this past December. As of now (10:35 AM on July 1) The lake is at 698.52. So the lake has risen 54.97 feet in 6 1/2 months.

In terms of volume, there has been an increase of 920,000 acre feet. That is the amount of water needed to cover 1 acre of land with one foot of water. An acre foot equals 326,000 gallons. So, that means an addition of 299,920,000,000 gallons of water.
 
We were bored this afternoon and decided to drive out to Carlos and Charlies just to check it out and it is indeed insane. I don't even know how some people get in the restaurant with that steep ramp.
And there were ducks swimming in the parking lot.
eek.gif
 
A friend of mine has a lake cabin on the Cypress Creek arm. I remember in '91, we were canoeing through the house when Travis hit its peak of ~710. We might be doing it again soon if this continues. That was the fllod that wiped out the first C&C and made them create the current, floating version.

Very crazy stuff.

Anyway, I took the boat out to Lake Buchanan over the weekend and had a great time.
 
Closed at least through tomorrow. With the amount of water still flowing into the river at just about all points, and consequently the necessity for keeping many flood gates open, I'd be surprised if they open up this weekend.

But don't forget, Lake Buchanan is a nice, wide-open lake and it isn't closed right now. It's not that far from Austin, just over an hour to the ramps on the south end of the lake.

I haven't heard that Canyon Lake is closed either. And there's also Georgetown. It's small, but it's still water.

Considering that the weather is supposed to be somewhat better this weekend, I'm definitely planning on hitting one of the above.
 
Here's a couple of comparison pics, from last Wednesday (June 27) and then yesterday (July 5).

This is the boat ramp at the Travis Landing Park a week ago:

flood02.jpg


And then this is the same a week later:

flood03.jpg


Notice the lightpole. And the lake is still rising.
 
Question about dams. I know they create spillways to prevent the dam from being taken out. So how many feet below the top of the dam is the fullest Lake Travis can get before taking out the dam and going for the spillway?
 
The spillway is at 714 feet. The top of the dam (where you used to drive on RR620) is at 750 feet. The highest it has ever been on Lake Travis is 710.44.
 
Is the spillway on one side of the dam?

So I guess nothing has ever breached the spillway (if the highest the lake has gotten is below the spillway height).
 
Maybe it's just wishful thinking but I think it will be open. The lake is dropping 16-18 inches per 24 hours. At that rate it will be between 689 and 690 before Saturday at 8:00.

The business owners on the lake will be in an uproar pretty soon and I am sure they are already pretty loud. I think the LCRA is just hedging their bets and not saying anything until they see that no more rain is going to fall.

What they are saying publicly is that it is due to debris in the lake. I think it has more to do with wake damage to the houses still sitting in water. If the water falls below that, I think they will be fine.

If that is the case, I think it is ********. Those people continually rebuild there every 4 or 5 years and should not get any special treatment when they choose to do so. This lake was designed and built as a flood reservoir and if they choose to build less than 10 feet above what is full, they should have ZERO say in the matter.
 
I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to be out on Travis, or Austin for that matter, this weekend anyway. All that crap in the water makes it real easy to ding up your expensive toys and who would want to swim in that brown soup?

I heard we have more extended rains coming later this weekend on the radio this morning. Mother Nature and me are gonna fight if that's true.
mad.gif
 
Well, no announcement yet, but the lake is down to 691. It should be below 690 by tomorrow.

Of course, it's supposed to rain this weekend, so the point may be moot anyway
 
CLOSED!

Official announcement mere moments after Hornians post!

teh SUCK!

If you see a 27 foot Sea Ray parked on 6th street, in front of Roux, tomorrow and a few drunks on board, drop by and have a beer.
 
Hey O&W:

On the 4th, we parked our boat in a friend's carport and pretended we were on the water. It was actually pretty fun...
 
While I was only jokingly talking about doing it on 6th street, don't think that we have never done it in other places. It does not take a lot to get us into the boat.
 
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