AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Central Texas will be hit with heavy rains as early as Wednesday night through Friday, and Austin is under a level 3 out of 4 flood risk.<\/p>\n
According to CBS Austin’s meteorologist Avery Tomasco, areas along the I-35 corridor could see 2-4 inches of rainfall. Parts of the Hill Country could see 3-5 inches of rain, but some forecasts report that isolated areas west of I-35 could potentially see over 10 inches of water.<\/p>\n
RELATED | Abbott warns Central Texans of possible heavy rain, flooding ahead of ACL’s first weekend<\/a><\/p>\n The City of Austin is not set to hold a public briefing for the upcoming storms, but Mayor Kirk Watson says the city is closely monitoring the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe good news is we always prepare for these kinds of things, and we are already monitoring, watching where things are supposed to be and what we may need to do,” said Watson.<\/p>\n Leah Gibson, Operations Division Manager with Austin Watershed Protection, says crews are working throughout the city ahead of the rain.<\/p>\n \u201cWe station crews around the city to check in on our bridges and culverts, basically our low water crossings that might have accumulated debris over the past couple of months,\u201c she said.<\/p>\n Crews will also be on call 24 hours a day once the storms hit.<\/p>\n KEYE<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe are communicating closely with our flood early warning system staff, who are using several different tools to monitor radar and stream gauge data, and we’re communicating closely with them on when an area might become inundated so that we can stage our crews close enough to the low water crossing to immediately barricade it and protect the public,” Gibson said.<\/p>\n ALSO | Sandy Creek residents ask Travis County for River Sentry flood sirens ahead of heavy rains<\/a><\/p>\n Austin Emergency Management (AEM) also provided a written statement in response to our questions.<\/p>\n AEM says it “works with the American Red Cross to assist with shelter for those who may be displaced from their home.”<\/p>\n “We also work with Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations to determine sheltering needs for the unhoused community. Austin Public Library branches and Austin Parks recreation centers are available to serve as Cooling Centers during regular business hours for those who need a reprieve from the weather,” the statement continued.<\/p>\n City of Austin emergency and flood preparedness resources<\/p>\n Austin Watershed Protection recommends residents utilize several tools to stay safe during heavy rains and potential flooding.<\/p>\n “Prior to getting on the road, we encourage folks to visit atxfloods.com<\/a>, which is updated in real time with low water crossings that have been inundated and are closed or barricaded,” said Gibson.<\/p>\n “Folks can visit atxfloodsafety.com<\/a> for a list of resources on how to prepare for a flood and what to do during a flood. If you don’t know if you’re in a floodplain or not, you can also visit atxfloodpro.com<\/a>,” she continued.<\/p>\n AEM also recommended opting into emergency alerts.<\/p>\n “AEM encourages our community members to subscribe to receive emergency notifications at WarnCentralTexas.org. We can notify you via text, email, and\/or phone… We also want everyone to opt in to receiving Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) through the IPAWS system. You can turn these on in the Notifications setting on your mobile device and turn on Emergency Alerts. The National Weather Service can also send messages through WEA for flash flood warnings. These alerts can save your life in an emergency,” AEM wrote. “Texas leads the nation in percentage of population that has opted out of receiving Wireless Emergency Alerts. If we can\u2019t contact you, whether through WEA or Warn Central Texas, we can\u2019t alert you to danger.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Central Texas will be hit with heavy rains as early as Wednesday night through Friday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-451711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451711","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=451711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}