AUSTIN, Texas — The City of Austin is still feeling the impacts of last week’s floods that hit Central Texas. A waterway ban has been in place since July 17, prohibiting people from going into certain bodies of water, like Lady Bird Lake, due to high waters and debris. The more than week-long ban has had an impact on businesses along the Colorado River that rent out watercrafts like paddle boards and kayaks.
A day spent out on the lake is a popular past time in Austin.
“There’s at least, just from this area right here, probably about 50 people just paddling at any given point right over here,” said Aubrea Rudder with the nonprofit the Austin Rowing Club just outside of the organization’s boat house.
Recreational water activities have been put on hold in some areas for more than a week. The City of Austin is enforcing a waterway ban after the floods in Central Texas resulted in floodgate operations that caused water to flow higher and faster. The ban prohibits people from being out on a few waterways in Austin.
“We’ve been just sending people away all day,” Rudder said.
The ban was originally supposed to end on Tuesday, but it was extended that day and again on Thursday, impacting businesses around Lady Bird Lake that rent out watercrafts, including the rowing club.
“Thankfully we had a really good Fourth of July, but as a nonprofit, we don’t make a ton of money so whenever we have these hits like that, we kind of have to pivot, cut down on some of the funding and things like that,” Rudder said.
The nonprofit relies on the revenue made from its rentals to support the work it does in the community it’s been in for the past 45 years.
“We host a ton of trash cleanups,” Rudder said. “Lake stewardship is extremely important to us. We teach kids how to row, how to paddle. We do summer camps.”
The rowing club hopes the ban will be lifted as early as Saturday afternoon, but it does see a silver lining from this situation.
“A lot of those weeds have been flushed out of Lady Bird Lake, so it’s looking a lot clearer and kind of overall safer for paddlers,” Rudder said.
The waterway ban was lifted for Lake Austin on Saturday, but it was extended for Lady Bird Lake and the Colorado River south of the Longhorn Dam until at least 5 p.m. Monday.