Posted: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 10:36 AM - 14,828 Readers
By: Rachel Rice
While many area residents and lakeside businesses are rejoicing at Lake Travis’ return to full capacity, Lakeway resident Mike Albrecht and his wife are gradually moving their belongings into storage, just in case the water creeps past their small retaining wall and up into their home.
“As the lake is coming up incrementally, we’re taking incremental steps to evacuate,” said Albrecht, whose home is less than 75 feet from the water’s edge. “We’re kind of at the mercy of Mother Nature and the (Lower Colorado River Authority).”
The Albrechts began leasing at their current location on Brooks Hollow Road just two years ago when the lake was visibly suffering the effects of the drought. Now that the lake is up, Albrecht said, they love to kayak, swim and sit on their porch and look out over the lake during nicer weather. But he predicts a 10-inch rain could bring the lake up to their door.
Mike Albrecht stands next to his home on Brooks Hollow Road and looks out at Lake Travis, which was full at 681 feet when this photo was taken March 25. RACHEL RICE/LAKE TRAVIS VIEW
“With a major rain event here or upstream, the lake is capable of rising a foot an hour,” Albrecht said. “One of the big variables is the El Niño weather pattern, which could bring a big rain event.”
He isn’t the only one of his neighbors preparing for a flood. Graveyard Point resident John Kopeck has since moved up the hill from his original home, but still throws parties twice a year at the property closer to the lake. When he and his wife lived in that house in 2007, he said, they lost many of their possessions in the flood.
“The reason I lost so much in that flood is that my parents are both handicapped and are living across the street, so I personally had to get them out,” Kopeck said. “It took me eight hours to get them out, and when I drove the trip with my truck and trailer, I was driving in 18 inches of water.”
Albrecht and Kopeck both say they know the risks of living in the flood zone. Of the dams controlled by the LCRA, Mansfield Dam is the only one built to temporarily hold floodwaters in order to protect the Austin area and further downstream. On top of the lake’s full capacity of 681 feet, 33 feet of floodwater can be stored on top of that, for a total of 714 feet.
“There’s a history of incredible and very catastrophic flooding that’s occurred in the Colorado River basin,” said John Hofmann, LCRA executive vice president of water. “We want to protect Austin and downstream and mitigate the effects of flooding … if you look at where we are right now, we’re a little bit into flood storage – barely over 681. We’re slowly but surely, through our normal releases, keeping that down to 681. But if we’re sitting at 681 and having a 20-inch rain event upstream in the Pedernales watershed … that’s a different scenario.”
Any number of factors might go into allowing the lake level to rise past 681. The LCRA might also take advantage of Lake Travis’ flood reservoir capacity if it’s already flooded downstream, and officials feel that they can’t afford to exacerbate the problem with waters rushing down the Pedernales, Hofmann said. And residents at the water’s edge need to be cognizant of that fact, Hofmann said.
“That’s what that (extra capacity) is for,” Hofmann said. “If you are new to the area, you need to talk to the people around you to find out how and when the reservoir gets to a certain level, and you need to start taking precautions. If you talk to people who have lived here a really long time, they’re old hands at that.”
Eighty-year-old Dewey Cooper is one of those Graveyard Point residents who is an old pro at packing up and taking off when the waters begin to rise. Cooper said the property he now occupies has been owned by his family since the early ’70s and has flooded numerous times, most recently in 2007. But, he said, he doesn’t worry about it too much.
“If it comes up, it comes up,” Cooper said. “It’s nothing new. When I leave here, when the flood starts coming and the water comes into my house, the commode and the bathtub are the only things left in the house. I take the kitchen sink even. I take the cabinets.”
The cleanup is a hassle, Cooper said – every flood means power washing and repainting the walls. But despite the fairly reliable chance of flooding every five or 10 years, the lake, with all the recreation and beauty it offers, is one of the reasons to stay, Cooper said. But it isn’t the only reason.
“You can’t beat some of the neighbors that live down here,” Kopeck said. “They know my family, they know my dad. I know pretty much everybody. People down here are in their 80s and late 70s, so you kind of look after them … there’s a camaraderie of community here.”
