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Special Central Texas Flood Risks

        Austin is part of the Central Texas "Flash Flood Alley" and has a long history of major flooding along its creeks and the Colorado River. Dams located on Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan, built in the 1940's, has helped control the very destructive flooding of the Colorado River. Today, the biggest risk is along the many creeks in our urban areas and the Colorado River south of Town Lake dam. Shoal, Bull and Walnut creeks in North Austin plus Onion and Williamson creeks in South Austin have considerable history of inundating adjacent areas.
    Our neighboring Hill Country also has many creeks subject to flooding plus several major rivers that can rage with great torrents after heavy rain. The Llano and Pedernales Rivers both have had major flood events in recent years. The Llano River, surging into Lake LBJ has caused major flood damage along its normally calm waters on several occasions.

FLOOD INSURANCE

Flood Insurance protects your house & possessions from loss by rising water from the outside.

Link: Recent Flooding Events in Central Texas

Four main reasons for the very high level of risk of flooding in both Austin and the surrounding areas:

  1. Austin has thin rocky soils from roughly IH-35 westward. The Hill Country area west of Austin shares this same thin, rocky soil. When these areas get a heavy rain storm, most of the water runs off rapidly.

  2. Austin's geography of hills and narrow creek valleys funnels runoff increasing the water level in a flood event. The hills are higher with narrow canyons in most of the Hill Country making floods particularly dangerous in this region west of Austin.

  3. Austin tends to be the point of collision between moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and Spring & Fall cold fronts moving eastward. This can cause very large storms that can lead to highly concentrated downpours. 

  4. Central Texas is the southern end of Tornado Alley. Powerful, "supercell" thunderstorms can spawn both tornadoes and also heavy downpours. The Jarrell Tornado (a community north of Austin on IH-35) of May 27, 1997 was a recent very damaging "F5" storm and was also a severe rain event. Two other tornados also caused damage in Cedar Park and Lake Travis from the same storm complex.