exTRA by the Trinity River Authority of Texas

After the rain subsided Monday, road and bridge crews headed out across Bastrop County to assess damages from Tropical Storm Harvey, which laid down as much as 22 inches of rainfall in some parts of the county over the weekend. Despite heavy downpours that lasted three days, many county commissioners and city officials said they were relieved to find the damage was less destructive than they anticipated.

LA GRANGE After returning home from his job as a cherrypicker truck driver for the Fayette Electric Co-op, Francisco Obregon on Sunday afternoon found yellow caution tape tied to the doorknob of his trailer home, which is about 100 yards from the Colorado River.

After defending no pre-release of Lake Conroe water late last week in spite of the threat of feet, not inches, of rain over the next several days and stating as late as Friday evening that there were no plans to release water from the lake, the San Jacinto River Authority reversed course early Saturday morning and announced that the dam would be open for a gradual release of water, threatening homes downstream along the river.

Texas 105 at the San Jacinto River bridge is expected to flood in the wake of the San Jacinto River Authority releasing water from Lake Conroe at a record-breaking rate. The release has already prompted mandatory evacuations for McDade Estates and likely other neighborhoods along the West Fork of the San Jacinto River.

In Houston, reservoirs swollen by rain from Hurricane Harvey were opened early Monday, a move that was expected to flood more homes — but one that the Army Corps of Engineers says is needed to limit the scope of the disaster that's threatening lives and property in Texas. "If we don't begin releasing now, the volume of uncontrolled water around the dams will be higher and have a greater impact on the surrounding communities," said Col. Lars Zetterstrom, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District. He warned residents to stay vigilant as water levels rise.

Also, the shelter at Humble Civic Center reached capacity as of 8 p.m., and the city is now turning people toward Light of the World Christian Fellowship Church on Atascocita Road. Houston Councilman Dave Martin's office still is seeking volunteers to help man a shelter at Fallbrook Church, 12512 Walters Road. The shelter will be used only for people being transported from Kingwood.

For single-family homeowners in Northwest Austin City Council districts 6 and 10—who have the highest water usage in the city, according to Austin Water—a 100-year water-management plan could mean a future of ordinances and incentives directly affecting their front lawns and water bills.

Despite Travis County receiving multiple inches of rain as a result of Hurricane Harvey over the weekend, the Lower Colorado River Authority’s hydromet system shows little change in area lake levels. The hydromet is a system of river and weather gauges used to measure conditions along the lower Colorado River basin, according to LCRA’s website.

HOUSTON — Swollen with days of record rainfall from Tropical Storm Harvey, a 70-year-old dam overflowed and a levee leaked Tuesday, sending water coursing into nearby neighborhoods in Houston and a southwestern suburb.
Despite controlled releases by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the water level of Addicks Reservoir in northwest Houston rose past the dam’s gates for the first time in its history, rising more than 10 inches past the spillway. 

This week, for the second time in as many years, a storm has pushed the Addicks and Barker dams to their limit. Early Monday morning, as Tropical Storm Harvey lingered over Houston and drowned whole swaths of the city, the Army Corps of Engineers began controlled releases from the dams, the first time they’ve done so during a major storm. By Monday afternoon, several neighborhoods near the reservoirs were under voluntary or mandatory evacuation as officials announced that releases from Addicks and Barker would continue for the foreseeable future. By early Tuesday morning, Addicks had topped the dam’s 108-foot spillway, leading to what officials call “uncontrolled releases” from the reservoir. Some homes could be inundated for a month.

SAN ANTONIO - The San Antonio River Authority has an interactive map you can use to see if your house or business is in or near a floodplain. It’s important to note these are areas of San Antonio that are prone to flooding, it doesn’t guarantee flooding will happen.

There’s no question it’s going to rain more in Central Texas this week — it’s just not clear exactly how much and where. The outer bands of rain and wind from the counterclockwise-spinning Tropical Storm Harvey bore down on the region for much of the weekend, especially to points east and south of Austin such as Bastrop, Caldwell and Fayette counties. Tens of thousands of customers lost power, scores of roads were closed, flights were canceled, school classes were called off or delayed, and evacuations were ordered in some areas because of increasingly widespread flooding.