Floodgates Are Open

This is a distant shot of the 4 open floodgates in Mansfield Dam, which holds back Lake Travis.  Lake Travis is just west of Austin.  Marble Falls, which is west and upstream got around 18 inches of rain last night.  This reain reportedly fell in just 3-4 hours.  That is more like a hurricane than your ordinary thunderstorms.  The lake has been rising steadily over the last 2 months after 3 years of drought.  By tomorrow when it crests (without more rain), Lake Travis will have risen around 53 feet in two months.  What is troubling is that more rain is in the forecast.  The next shot is a look at the bottom of the dam a little closer.

I have seen six floodgates open at once at the dam years ago and it is an amazing and very loud image to take in.  What you are looking at is three 8-foot open gates and one that I'm guessing is around 2 feet wide.  As you can guess, this is a spectacle that attracts a lot of visitors.  News crews and lots of people were there this evening at around 6:30 when I went by to take the photos.

When we get rain and flooding like this, lakes close.  Lake Travis is closed due to the high amount of bacteria that is washing into it as well as debris like trees and limbs that has been uprooted.  Lake Austin is closed below Mansfield Dam because of swift and turbulent water from the release of so much water through the floodgates.  Town Lake, closer to downtown, is also closed due to rapid water.