Runoff from a second storm in less than a week flooded low water cross ings as well as nearby creeks and streams, leaving the area soaked but without much incident.
Burnet County Emergency Management Coordinator Derek Marchio offered an assessment of local flash flooding re ports.
"We definitely had some interesting weather over the last couple of weeks with some heavy rains,” he told The Highlander. “The heavy rains over the last three weeks have primed and saturated the soil. Last Thursday (May 21) we had only an inch of rain but we had crossings that were inundated and impassable.
"It made flash flood ing a much easier possibility than if the ground was dry.”
There were no reports of deaths, but at least two rescues.
“We’ve been seeing more issues in lowwater crossings. Last Thursday (May 21), we had the one rescue (on CR 340 just outside Marble Falls),” he recalled.
In that incident, a motorist’s passenger vehicle washed off the crossing around 10 p.m. Marble Falls Area EMS and Burnet County Sheriff’s Office pulled him from the car to safety. He was treated and released at the scene.
“Tuesday night we had one on CR 200 (Shady Grove Road just outside Burnet) and then another one at Cimarron Ranch (east of Marble Falls) and that ended up being some folks that got stuck in a field near Hamilton Creek,” he said.
No injuries or deaths were reported in those incidents.
“Part of preparedness is staying ahead of the event or sizing up the event,” he said. “The last two (flood) events, I'd say, were minor.
“We didn’t get into the effects like back in July 2025 (with) a whole community response involving local, regional and state partners.”
In July 2025, at least six people died in the Highland Lakes area in either rising flood waters but primarily low water crossings. One death involved a volunteer fire chief on his way to a rescue. At that event, double digit rain totals in several days fed an atypical amount of flash flooding, officials said at
the time.
In the most recent event May 26, as much as 4 inches of rain pummeled much of the Highland Lakes, prompting the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) to open a floodgate at Max Starcke Dam.
Starcke Dam creates Lake Marble Falls.
LCRA officials say opening a floodgate eas es the rise of the waterway which has a number of residences on the shoreline.
“Just before midnight, crews across the Highland Lakes were already monitoring conditions as storms moved through the region,” LCRA officials shared in a statement. “At 11:24 PM, LCRA’s River Operations team opened a floodgate at Starcke Dam to safely move water downstream into Lake Travis.”
Like Lake Marble Falls, Lake LBJ, upstream of the Marble Falls waterway, is considered a pass-through lake. Communities along Lake LBJ include Granite Shoals, Horseshoe Bay and Sunrise Beach.
LCRA releases water from Wirtz Dam (which creates Lake LBJ) typically through a process called “hydroelectric generation”, although there are floodgates on the structure. That wa- ter then flows into Lake Marble Falls.
No floodgate oper ations were reported on Lake LBJ this time so crews utilized hydroelectric generation to make power as well as move water through Wirtz Dam.
Crews closed the gate at Starcke Dam around 8 a.m. the following morning.
In his overall assessment of the most recent flooding, Marchio be lieves the combination of emergency response, dam operations and public education minimized the dangers.
“Our public safety agencies responded very well. Since what happened in July, not only are we more aware, the public is very aware of what can happen,” Marchio said. “The biggest thing is don’t drive through roads that have water running over them.
“It’s that whole adage, ‘turn around, don’t drown’. It only takes 6 inches of fast moving water to wash a car downstream,” he said. “You don’t know the state of the road that’s underneath that water; there could be washouts that cause you to get stuck.”
To sign up for emergency and disaster no- tification, visit warn centraltexas.org. Also, to monitor dam operations along the Highland Lakes, visit lcra.org.
