BURNET COUNTY, Texas — The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) has closed several floodgates at Writz Dam and Starcke Dam after opening them Wednesday following recent rains.
While the risk for widespread heavy rain and flooding is decreasing for the rest of the week, river flooding on the Llano River remained a concern Wednesday as floodwaters push downstream. This prompted a River Flood Warning in effect through Thursday morning, as well as the LCRA opening some floodgates.
The LCRA opened one floodgate at Writz Dam and up to four floodgates at Starcke Dam. The agency said the runoff was flowing from Lake LBJ into Lake Marble Falls through Writz and from Lake Marble Falls into Lake Travis through Starcke.
"Lake Travis is the only lake in the Highland Lakes that was built to hold floodwaters, and our whole system is set up to steer flood events like this to Lake Travis," John Hofmann, the LCRA's executive vice president of Water, said.
Flows were faster and water levels were higher than usual downstream of the dams, so the LCRA asked everyone to take action to protect people and property that may be impacted.
"Significant flows on the Llano, watershed, some of the gauges we had were over 80,000 cubic feet per second," Hofmann said.
The LCRA said the most recent floodgate openings at Writz and Starcke dams were in October 2023. The agency typically has floodgate openings at least every couple of years.
On Thursday morning, the agency said the floodgate operations at the two dams had concluded, and that it will continue releasing storm runoff downstream through hydroelectric generation.
"Though flows from hydroelectric generation are less than flows from floodgates, the flows are still notable and will cause currents in the lakes," the LCRA said. "Anyone recreating in the lakes should be aware of the currents and should take precautions to stay safe."
What does this mean for local lakes?
We're expecting levels at Lake Travis to rise modestly, with the lake currently roughly 47% full. Hofmann said the recent rains could bring Lake Travis by up to 5 feet.
Meanwhile, Lake Buchanan is around 70% full.
The LCRA said no gate operations to pass floodwaters are expected at Mansfield Dam or Buchanan Dam as of Wednesday afternoon.
While we don't expect any more heavy rain this week, we still have some scattered showers and thunderstorms remaining in the forecast through the weekend. If the rain falls in those same areas, it should add some more inflows into our Highland Lakes.