Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenBoot
AviationGuy's claim is accurate. The river did not flood downtown in 2013 & 2015...the creeks flowing into Lady Bird Lake (aka the lower Colorado River) did. In fact, during those floods (and several others), down flow of the river was not the major cause of downtown damage by any recent flood. Again, it was flow from the creeks which lead into LBL.
The dams have saved downtown Austin from major floods caused by down flow, of the Colorado River, from the Hill Country.
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DT is higher up so would take a lot to overflow that side but the river did overflow its banks. You can see pictures showing that it did and away from the Creek outflows. There is Meteorological data that also shows that. The issue is not upstream flooding but prolonged intense rainfall over the city proper which can flow into Ladybird Lake at such a high rate, that the city cannot send the water through Longhorn Dam quickly enough. In both cases that is what happened. A combination of factors play a part in why this occurred from continued urbanization along the creeks drainage basins i.e. increased impervious cover, to more extreme rainfalls and the frequency that we are seeing them increase. It's not the same as a huge flood wave coming from upstream, but it is an issue that the city has to deal with and will be dealing with on a more frequent basis in the future especially along the lower shorelines. Higher shorelines will not be affected.
I did not say anything about DT flooding but it definitely flooded the lower shoreline along the river. You can see pictures of the Stevie Ray Vahn statue surrounded by water up to the top of the podium where the statue sits.