Flooding at Lake LBJ Texas

[JetPowered]

Horrible flooding today down here in Texas. We boat on Lake LBJ, part of the Highland Lakes chain in central Texas, west of Austin. The entire reservoir came up about 5-6 feet in my area. I watched the dock get submerged on webcam and then the boat started to float off the lift. Water came up so high that the boat got stuffed into the ceiling of the dock cover. I'm worried that this may have forced water into the boat by scupper or fresh air vent on the swim deck. I'll know more tomorrow when I get up there. I'm headed up with the full kit to be prepared to change oil on both engines if necessary.

We got off easy. The upper part of the lake rose so high it took out a main highway bridge upstream from us in Kingsland (RM 2900) and pretty much flooded every single boat in the upper part of the lake and took out multiple boat docks (and some houses) in that stretch. Pretty bad stuff. The neighbor next to us has 1-2 feet of flood water in their house today.

 

[JetPowered]

Oh, and those little dots in the lake. Those are boats that have floated free. I'm sure most went over the dam and are probably already in Lake Travis.

 

[Jaylex]

Glad everyone is safe....what kind of boat did you have?

 

[JetPowered]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1930309333940667

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10210166933128235

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=287895822054512

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=334201637157066

 

[JetPowered]

Hopefully it's "still has" my 2008 232 Limited pictured in my profile.

 

[PEARCE]

Was there not any warning before they started letting water out of Bucanan? I know LBJ is a constant level lake so I would think the people in charge, Lower Colorado River Authority, would send out a notice somehow. I saw on our news this morning the first clip you posted of the 2900 bridge going downstream. That's just awful! I have a cousin who used to own a house on LBJ that he spent several years remodeling and making it a true showplace. It wasn't on much of a hill so it had nice access to the lake. In fact, a part of the lower level of the house had a boat garage where your boat would sit on a cradle that was on tracks and would be pulled out of the water and into the garage under the house. I'm sure the lower level of the house is flooded by now. Thankfully he sold it over five years ago.

@JetPowered I truly hope all is well with your boat and property. You and your family are safe and it's just stuff that can be replaced. We're flooding up here in North Texas too. Texoma is normally at full pool at 617 feet. I just checked the current level is at 628.66 and still rising. At 643 the lake is going over the spillway. The area around our marina is flooding and will be shutting off the power to the docks soon, if not already. The only way to get to our floating docks is by water taxi provided by the marina.

 

[captras]

I hope your boat survives! We have been to Lake LBJ and it is a beautiful lake. We are on Lake Livingston and it is about 2 feet above normal. The problem is all the water from Dallas feeds into the Trinity river which feeds Lake Livingston. Hoping all the best for everybody affected by this event!

 

[JetPowered]

Thanks and I was just reading about lake ups there too. We would have Thought that we would’ve gone from the giant massive drought200 year flood in three weeks!

Pearce, this was a flood on the Llano river which is uncontrolled. Simply put a HUGE amount of rain fell upstream in the early evening and overnight and we had little time to react. That river hasn’t flooded that bad sine 1934

 

[JetPowered]

Good news! Boat not flooded. It was teetering on the edge of the lift so I could not board it but amazingly the lift still worked and we were able to lower and center. Drivers windshield is smashed and the frame bent pretty bad at on both sides. I’ll gladly trade that damage for engine flooding!

 

[swatski]

Good news! Boat not flooded. It was teetering on the edge of the lift so I could not board it but amazingly the lift still worked and we were able to lower and center. Drivers windshield is smashed and the frame bent pretty bad at on both sides. I’ll gladly trade that damage for engine flooding!

Glad to see the boat is (almost) fine!
So, how did that happen?
Is it a floating lift inside a fixed dock? Does the dock not float?

—

 

[JetPowered]

The lift is a fixed Sunstream hydraulic ram lift sitting in a fixed level dock. The water came in so high that the boat floated up out of the lift. The only thing that kept it from floating out into the lake was the $10 charging extension cord! I had wrapped a couple of loops of cord around one of the wooden uprights to keep the cord out of the way. Glad I did or the boat may have gone out and over the dam. As you can see it was just teetering on the back of the lift.

My neighbors Cobalt had similar windshield damage except his folded down the entire starboard side.

From what I’m hearing, there has never been a flood quite like this at the lake. My damage is inconsequential compared to other that’s have lost houses and/or complete docks with boats.

 

[buckbuck]

Is that the high water line I see on the siding?

 

[JetPowered]

Yep

 

[PEARCE]

Glad to see that it survived and that was the only damage. It could have been way worse as you know.

 

[swatski]

View attachment 84434 The lift is a fixed Sunstream hydraulic ram lift sitting in a fixed level dock. The water came in so high that the boat floated up out of the lift. The only thing that kept it from floating out into the lake was the $10 charging extension cord! I had wrapped a couple of loops of cord around one of the wooden uprights to keep the cord out of the way. Glad I did or the boat may have gone out and over the dam. As you can see it was just teetering on the back of the lift.

My neighbors Cobalt had similar windshield damage except his folded down the entire starboard side.

From what I’m hearing, there has never been a flood quite like this at the lake. My damage is inconsequential compared to other that’s have lost houses and/or complete docks with boats.

WOW!
I guess this is kind of so unusual for me to see! I always envy you people with those fixed docks, but I guess there are limits.
Where I dock, my docks and the boathouse can float up or down 10-15, sometimes 20 ft overnight...! The trick is to keep up with the water level, but everything floats.

Glad the damage is really contained, I don;t even want to think what would it look like if you had a tower...

--

 

[JetPowered]

More pics from the area, not mine. I will launch my drone this morning a scope out our neighborhood.

This really demonstrates how lucky I was! Most lost their boats and MANY had water up the the top of their first floor.

 

[boudin]

Wow. Those pics are incredible.

 

[Wayloncle]

That is crazy!
The boat on the roof is insane, how do you get that down other than tying a rope to it and yanking it down?

Assuming there isn’t an assessible spot for a crane...

 

[JetPowered]

So the way to do it is with a barge and crane or loader. This guy was going around the lake today towards some of those boats. Elsewhere on the lake a big problem is that boats and skies have washed into flats or island and are MANY yards from the water or in trees. Not easy to recover from the water and impossible from land for now.

 

[PEARCE]

Wow!! You were damn lucky! The power of water is incredible. We've had our Yamaha down on that lake many times and have seen a good bit of it if not most. There's a lot of money on that lake! Not only the homes, but the boat houses to match with high dollar boats parked in them.

I did a little map exploring yesterday and the place we used to stay at for our family reunion was on the Llano river of LBJ. It wasn't but maybe a mile from the dam and it sits up a hill a good ways. I don't know if the resort, Heart of Texas, was spared or not. We've not had a reunion is a few years, but we resumed this weekend in another area of Texas.