Flood — Burnet, Texas

2018-10-16 to 2018-10-17 · near Marble Falls Arpt, Burnet, Texas

Event narrative

Heavy rain mainly west of Burnet County and lakes LBJ and Marble Falls, caused rapid rises on the Colorado River. Several hundred thousand CFS of flood water entered Lake LBJ near Kingsland (where the Llano River enters the lake), with flood waters flowing down the Colorado River into Lake Marble Falls. Lake LBJ and Marble Falls rose rapidly, flooding homes and some businesses. While the lake only rose a few feet at Wirtz Dam, farther upstream on Lake LBJ near Kingsland, Granite Shoals, Highland Haven, and Cottonwood shores, rapid rises on the Lake caused many homes to flood. Lake LBJ started to rise in the predawn hours and continued high through the day. Downstream of Wirtz dam is Lake Marble Falls which saw a 15 feet rise in less than 12 hours. Evacuation notices were sent out near the Lake on the morning of Oct 16. For the above mentioned communities, estimates of damage include 17 homes destroyed, 168 with Major damage, 64 homes with Minor Damage, and 31 homes that were affected. As of this writing, early and ongoing flood insurance payouts totaled over 11 million dollars so far along with roughly 7 million spend on debris removal and 2 million dollars worth of damage to the Marble Falls water treatment plant. Additional flood repairs to homes should easily surpass an additional 10-15 million dollars when you total the several hundred homes impacted. It is estimated that total losses in Burnet County and Lakes LBJ and Marble Falls could surpass 30 million dollars.

Wider weather episode

A cold front moved into a very moist atmosphere and generated showers and thunderstorms some of which produced heavy rain that led to flash flooding. Rainfall totals during this episode included 8.40 inches at Mountain Home in Kerr County, 6.26 inches at Llano, and 9.27 inches at Castell in Llano County. This widespread rainfall created a massive flood along the Llano River and its nearby creeks. The flood waters went into the Colorado River and produced lake flooding on Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, and Lake Travis where hundreds of homes were flooded.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (30.6149, -98.3953)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 790894. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.