Posted on 11/16/2001 1:19:32 PM PST by Lucas1
Tornado reporting in Austin, Texas. There have been other tornadoes reported throughout Texas this afternoon.
Anyone in that area have any reports for us on damage?
The big scare is the white powder they found on the field at Texas Stadium. After much research and head scratching, someone remembered that it was the goal line...
I forgot to tell her about hundred year flood plains and Memorial Day 1981.
Really love the city. When we retire it'll be the Hill Country or south India.
Tornadoes, floods rip area; at least 4 dead, 2 missing
Few places go untouched by storms' power
By Jonathan Osborne
American-Statesman Staff
Friday, November 16, 2001
Tornadoes uprooted trees, ripped roofs off buildings and overturned 18-wheelers. Flash floods transformed major streets and intersections into streams. At least four people died, and two other were reported missing.
Mother Nature wreaked havoc on Central Texas Thursday, producing storms that knocked out power to 37,000 homes, disrupted cell phone service and turned traffic-clogged streets into wet parking lots.
"I was born here," said 52-year-old Warren Hassinger, spokesman for the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services. "I'm seeing streets and areas of Austin flooded that I have never seen flooded before."
The train of storms that dumped 13 inches of rain in some places was created by a strong low-pressure area centered over the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas. The storms began rumbling across the Hill Country and Central Texas late Wednesday and produced a supercell, or severe storm, over Hays County on Thursday afternoon. Rain fell at a rate of up to 3 inches an hour, said Lower Colorado River Authority meteorologist Bob Rose.
At 3:12 p.m., a tornado descended from the supercell and touched down along Interstate 35 north of San Marcos. Three minutes later, between Kyle and Buda, the tornado uprooted trees and overturned at least two 18-wheelers on the interstate.
The supercell and the tornado continued north along the interstate until 3:35 p.m., when City of Austin emergency technicians reported it at Ben White Boulevard in South Austin. There, the tornado weakened and withdrew back into the severe storm that continued northward.
By 8 p.m., four people, including three Central Texans, were reported dead.
• Paramedics found a 30-year-old unidentified man drowned beneath a truck in Southwest Austin near Slaughter Lane about 7 p.m. The water had ripped his clothes away, Hassinger said.
• In Marble Falls, 20-year-old Jerry Shorten of Bertram died after a two-car collision on U.S. 281, according to the Department of Public Safety. Shorten's pickup hydroplaned across the center line about 2 p.m., crashing into a sedan driven by 71-year-old Annie Mason of Liberty Hill. She was in stable condition late Thursday.
• In Blanco County, which received some of the heaviest flooding, 64-year-old Santos Perez Lasoya drowned when his truck was swept from a water crossing on County Road 102 into a rain-swollen creek. Two other men in the truck climbed to safety atop the roof and were rescued by passers-by.
• The body of a pregnant Amarillo woman was found at 2:20 p.m., more than four hours after the car she was riding in was swept off a state highway near Rockspring in Edwards County, about 90 miles northwest of San Antonio. Officials had not released her identity.
In Pflugerville, helicopter search-and-rescue teams continued to search Thursday night for two missing people who were swept away in their car near FM 685.
Late Thursday, two Austin police officers were swept into Onion Creek, near William Cannon Drive and Pleasant Valley Road, said Lt. David Belknap of the Austin Fire Department. By a little after 10 p.m., both had been rescued.
Tornadoes touch down
Moments after officials declared a major city emergency at about 6 p.m. Thursday, a tornado reportedly tore the roof off of the Montopolis Community Center in East Austin. About 50 people were inside eating an early Thanksgiving dinner when the tornado struck, but nobody was seriously injured, Hassinger said.
"It sounded like a big train coming over the building without the whistle," said Skippy Moore, the center's program director. "People were screaming and crying and just not sure what to do."
At 7 p.m., wind tore the roof off of a building at the Wildcreek Apartments complex on Faro Drive in Southeast Austin. No injuries were reported, but Guadalupe Castillo, who lives in a first-floor apartment, said, "Everything was just flying around in the air."
About a half-dozen other tornadoes were reported in the region, including a twister in Blanco County that witnesses said upended a trailer home near the Hays County line.
Rising water
By 8 p.m., the Pedernales River at Johnson City was at 15.7 feet, almost 2 feet above flood stage, after cresting Thursday afternoon at 22.3 feet. The Llano River at Llano was at 16.6 feet, almost five feet above its flood stage. It was holding steady but expected to rise.
Water from the Pedernales and Llano rivers eventually flows into Lake Travis, which was expected to reach its full elevation of 681 feet this morning.
The last time Lake Travis was at full elevation was May 27, during the Memorial Day weekend.
In some low-lying parts of Austin near flood-prone creekbeds, such as the Shoal Creek area along North Lamar Boulevard, cars and trucks were submerged. The U.S. Geological Service reporting station on Shoal Creek at 12th Street showed that the creek rose 17 feet over the course of the day. Before the rain, the creek's height was 1.37 feet with no measurable flow. By 5:35 p.m., it had topped at 18.27 feet deep with a flow of 8,139 cubic feet per second.
When the water was at its highest, the Shoal Creek Saloon at Ninth Street and Lamar Boulevard went under water and the nearby intersection transformed from a functioning road to a six-foot-deep creekbed. Some motorists tried to brave the intersection in small cars, but ended up swimming for safety after floating to the sidewalk. Eventually the flood spanned several blocks, turning Lamar into a graveyard of abandoned cars.
Rescue workers showed up in wet suits. Equipped with motor boats and paddle boards, they ventured into the water to save anyone trapped.
"It hasn't been this bad in a while," said Brandon Wright, who was watching trash bins and large ice machines slam into the Ninth Street bridge.
Bumper to bumper
Throughout the city, traffic gridlocked as police blocked off roads and emergency crews toiled to clean up collisions and push stalled vehicles out of high-water areas.
On South First Street, traffic lights flickered at intersections awash in foot-deep water, as if a hurricane had come ashore. Some cars pulled over to the curb and onto grassy lawns, while others were yanked aside by the running wind and rain.
South Congress Avenue was darkened by a power outage south of Mary Street. Cars clung as closely as possible to the turn lane, trying to avoid the curbs and outside lanes where pools ran higher than the sidewalks.
By 5 p.m., Austin police had reported about 220 wrecks, most of them caused by the flooding.
Responding to rising river levels in San Marcos, city officials evacuated a neighborhood along River Road east of I-35, said city spokeswoman Melissa Millecam.
"This happened a couple years ago, and we're being very cautious and evacuating them before it gets to that (flood) stage," she said.
San Marcos opened an emergency shelter at an activity center and took in 33 students who had been stranded at schools.
Powerless
Utilities across Central Texas reported power outages, and Austin Energy repair crews expected to work through the night.
South Austin — which received nearly 13 inches of rain by 8 p.m. — and downtown were hardest hit, but outages were everywhere, spokesman Ed Clark said. By 9 p.m. about 23,000 of the utility's 350,000 customers were without power — down from a high of 37,000.
Even Austin-Bergstrom International Airport briefly lost power and had to resort to emergency generators, according to Austin Energy. Flights were delayed throughout the day and grounded for about 90 minutes.
Outages affected about 1,500 customers in the Kyle-Buda area, according to Pedernales Electric Cooperative spokeswoman Anne Harvey. Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative reported minor outages in the Manor, Lockhart, Kyle and Buda areas.
Hospitals, which like the airport have emergency generators to maintain power, had other concerns. At South Austin Hospital on Ben White Boulevard, patients were moved away from windows. At the Heart Hospital, orderlies moved visitors in the lobby to an interior corridor. Because some cell phones weren't working, Heart Hospital staff communicated by walkie-talkies, spokeswoman Shelley Swafford said.
Brackenridge and Children's hospitals also were on emergency generators, and it was still unclear whether today's elective surgeries would be canceled.
KVUE meteorologist Ilona Torok said it wasn't clear if the weather would improve today.
"Whether or not we're going to see the same severe thunderstorms . . . it's kind of hard to say," Torok said. "But it's possible."
One hell of a good line! May I use it (with proper attribution, of course)?
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