Flash Floods Move Fast in Travis County

A creek that was a trickle at lunch can be a brown torrent by dinner. The thin soils and steep limestone of Central Texas shed heavy rain almost instantly, which is why the region carries the nickname Flash Flood Alley. Water rises in minutes, not hours. About 12 inches of moving water can float a car off the road, and nationwide more than half of flood drownings happen to people who drove into it.

The low-water crossings scattered across western Travis County are where this turns fatal. Never go around a barricade: turn around, don't drown. ATXFloods.com maps real-time road closures, Austin's Watershed Protection Department tracks conditions across the city, and LCRA's Hydromet system at hydromet.lcra.org reads the river and creek gauges across the whole basin so you can see what's already coming downstream.