![\"Austin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7v1mgg357wu6eqn9.jpg\")
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AUSTIN, Texas – Several South Austin<\/a> residents recently had flooding in their homes because of a clog in a drainage ditch behind their yards.\u00a0<\/p>\n They say they haven’t been able to get a clear answer on who is responsible for maintaining it.<\/p>\n Local perspective:<\/p>\n David Mervine has lived on Fort View Road since 2013. He says on June 15, a big storm caused a clog, and it flooded his house.<\/p>\n “This time it was four hours while it was raining, and then it stayed for another 13 afterwards because the water wasn’t going anywhere. It was just evaporating for hours and days,” Mervine said.<\/p>\n He says he spent $40,000 on cleanup and repairs.<\/p>\n While the city cleared the clog, Mervine said it’s not clear who is responsible for the ditch, the city or a nearby apartment complex.<\/p>\n “City of Austin told me the clog was somewhere between this downspout and [Highway] 71, but we don’t know whose fault it is. The city has claimed they’re going to take it over, and we’re really pretty concerned about not just what’s already happened, but it’s happening again,” Mervine said.<\/p>\n He said he was told there was a mismatched pipe size somewhere in the line.<\/p>\n “My information from the city was that in between this downpipe and\u00a0 [highway] 71, there was an 8-inch pipe run into the 3-foot pipe that they have that was run in too far,” he said.<\/p>\n His neighbor, Paul Gittinger, also had his house flooded. He estimates he’ll have to spend $100,000 for cleanup and repairs.<\/p>\n “I would like for the city to tell us where the clog actually is and who did the work, because it seems like it was improper. We don’t know if it was the city or if it a private person. It would be nice to be able to go after somebody for some accountability, because I would rather not spend $100,000,” Gittinger said.<\/p>\n Both residents are submitting claims with the city and hope to be reimbursed. Because their homes are not in a floodplain, they didn’t have flood insurance.<\/p>\n The other side:<\/p>\n Austin Watershed Protection says:<\/p>\n “Stormwater drainage in this area is conveyed through infrastructure owned and\u00a0maintained\u00a0by multiple entities, including the City of Austin, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), and private property owners.<\/p>\n Stormwater flows through a series of open concrete channels, portions of which are\u00a0maintained\u00a0by the\u00a0City, before entering a 36-inch storm drain owned and\u00a0maintained\u00a0by TxDOT.\u00a0This pipe is in a drainage easement behind the commercial development on the east side of Victory Dr.<\/p>\n Nearby businesses and apartment complexes also own and\u00a0maintain\u00a0private\u00a0water-quality and detention ponds, as well as\u00a0the drainage infrastructure on their properties.”<\/p>\n FOX 7 asked if the wrong size pipe was placed and who is responsible for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n Austin Watershed said in a statement:\u00a0<\/p>\n “The 36-inch storm drain, installed in 1979, is owned and\u00a0maintained\u00a0by TxDOT. While older infrastructure of this type may be undersized for today’s more intense rainfall, the pipe’s size does not appear to have been a factor in the June 15 flooding.<\/p>\n The flooding occurred because the\u00a036-inch\u00a0storm\u00a0drain\u00a0pipe\u00a0was obstructed by sediment and debris,\u00a0which has been removed. This obstruction\u00a0caused\u00a0water to back\u00a0up upstream.\u00a0There was\u00a0also a\u00a0PVC pipe\u00a0extending into the storm drain that was restricting flow.\u00a0TxDOT has removed the\u00a0obstructing\u00a0portion\u00a0of the PVC pipe.”<\/p>\n While the ditch was cleaner than it used to be when FOX 7 visited, there was still debris, trash, and needles in it.<\/p>\n Mervine says there have been homeless people in the ditch, and it’s a breeding ground for mosquitos.<\/p>\n Residents are worried the flooding will happen again.<\/p>\n “I’m sure that every time it rains, I’m going to feel like, ‘how much is this going to cost me?'” Gittinger said.<\/p>\n FOX 7 asked the city if they could reassure residents their homes won’t be flooded again.<\/p>\n They said, “following the June 15 storm, Austin Watershed Protection and TxDOT addressed several issues\u00a0identified\u00a0during the response\u00a0to the 3-1-1 call.\u00a0We\u00a0will inspect the open channels quarterly, as well as before and after significant storm events, to\u00a0identify\u00a0maintenance needs. While these measures will improve system performance, some flood risk will remain.\u00a0<\/p>\n We have also\u00a0identified\u00a0maintenance challenges where private fences have been constructed within City drainage easements, limiting access for inspection and maintenance.\u00a0We\u00a0will continue coordinating with TxDOT and private property owners to address these issues. In addition, we plan to evaluate the overall drainage system and pursue improvements, where\u00a0appropriate, to help reduce future flood risk.”<\/p>\n Mervine says he’s submitted multiple 311 requests, but some are closed and say “future project.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Watershed said in response: “The remaining work includes an Engineering Assessment. This project is on the waitlist to be assigned to an engineer. Please note that there is a significant backlog of locations waiting for assessments. In addition, there are ongoing maintenance needs as described above.”<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this report comes from reporting\/interviews by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen<\/p>\n 7 On Your Side<\/a>Housing<\/a>South Austin<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas – Several South Austin residents recently had flooding in their homes because of a clog in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[30362,132,134,133,3222,223,1726,4522,394,216,393],"class_list":["post-381714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-7-on-your-side","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-housing","tag-news","tag-series","tag-south-austin","tag-travis-county","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gimage00012-scaled.jpeg\")
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