Texas Washout

It’s rained every day since I arrived in Austin. The TV and radio are full of stories of flooding, rooftop rescues, and rising streams, rivers and lakes. Some parts of Texas nearby are being pelted with the same amount of rainfall in 24 hours—about 18 ins—as they would normally expect in one year. And yet I am in that strange situation where the only evidence I see of the flooding is on the news. In Austin itself, all I see is a gray sky and intermittent bursts of sunshine:

Central Texas is getting hit by more storms this morning, and the National Weather Service has put a large portion of Central Texas, including Travis, Hays and Williamson counties, under a flash flood warning until 11:15 a.m. The storms, which are moving in from the southwest, are expected to cause flash flooding and spread north throughout the morning. There’s another line of storms coming into the area from the northwest through the Hill Country.

[...]As of 6:45 this morning, Lake Travis was at 693.6 feet above sea level, which is 12 feet above what is considered full. The Lower Colorado River Authority, which regulates the flow of water through a series of dams on the Colorado River, says four floodgates are open at Mansfield Dam, which regulates Lake Travis. Three floodgates are open at Tom Miller Dam, which holds in Lake Austin.