The floods that hit Austin in the early hours of Halloween morning killed at least five people and damaged more than 500 homes.
Some parts of the city received nearly 10 inches of rain in a 24 hour span, and Austin’s rivers, creeks, and streams rose to historic levels.
One of the lasting images from the floods was a photo of the statue of Austin legend Stevie Ray Vaughan waist-deep in water. The photographer who captured that photo, Reagan Hackleman, rushed down to Lady Bird Lake to get the photos. His images show water bursting up from manholes and the Lamar Street Bridge nearly covered by the rising river.
Hackleman spoke with StateImpact Texas’ Mose Buchele about the experience of taking the photographs, and what it was like to see the city transformed by the floods.
NRG Limestone Electric Generating Station in Limestone County
When it comes to spectator sports, it might not rank with college football in Texas. But when a state senate committee held a hearing last week to figure out if something is wrong with the state’s deregulated market for electricity, people far from Texas were glued to their computers, watching the hearing live over the internet.
“In all my experience, I’ve never really seen anything in which the Texas Public Utility Commission’s officials have been taken to task in such an aggressive manner by a state legislative hearing,” said Paul Patterson, a New York-based investment analyst who watched the hearing.
Patterson and others who keep close tabs on the nation’s electricity industry are eager to see how Texas handles a problem also facing other states: is there a risk of power shortages if more power plants aren’t built? And if the risk is real, who will foot the gigantic bill? Continue Reading →
A map of recent earthquakes (in red) and oil and gas wastewater disposal wells outside of Fort Worth. Active disposal wells are in green; inactive wells are in yellow. Map by Michael Marks/Terrence Henry
UPDATE: Another earthquake, magnitude 2.7, hit two miles north of Azle, Texas at approximately 9:44 Tuesday morning the 3rd of December according to the United States Geological Survey.
Another earthquake struck near the town of Azle just after midnight Friday, measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale. It was the 17th quake in the area around Eagle Mountain Lake (northwest of Fort Worth) in November, the largest a 3.6. No injuries have been reported from the quakes, but one local tells StateImpact Texas that the quakes are causing damage to homes and unnerving residents.
“It has damaged my house, my driveway is cracking down the driveway,” says Rebecca Williams of Azle. Cracks have also appeared on the outside of her home and in a retaining wall in her backyard. “When these [earthquakes] happen, my whole house shakes,” she says.
What’s behind the tremors? The area is not known for its seismic activity, but does have several wells used for disposing of wastewater from oil and gas drilling. Water used during the fracking process, as well as water that comes back up the well with oil and gas deposits, is typically disposed of by injecting it deep underground into wastewater wells. Those disposal wells, often located a mile or deeper underground, have been known to cause earthquakes in other parts of Dallas-Fort Worth, as well as other states like Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio. And they are the likely culprit here, says Ken Morgan, Director of the Energy Institute at Texas Christian University. Continue Reading →
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