How many times have you heard the television or radio alert, "We are now under a flash flood watch"? While the destructive force of flash flooding is a regular occurrence in the state and has caused a tremendous amount of damage and heartache over the years, no one until now has recorded in a single book the history of flash floods in Texas. After combing libraries and archives, grilling county historians, trekking to flood sites, and collecting scores of graphic photographs, Jonathan Burnett chose twenty-eight floods from around the state to create this narrative of a century of disastrous events. Beginning with the famous Austin dam break of 1900 and ending with the historic 2002 flooding in the Hill Country, Burnett chronicles the causes and courses of these catastrophic floods as well as their costs in material damage and human lives. Dramatic photographs of each event enhance the harrowing accounts of danger spawned by nature on a rampage. Together, the stories and the pictures give readers a vivid and lasting image of the power and unpredictability of flash floods in Texas.

How many times have you heard the television or radio alert, “We are now under a flash flood watch”? While the destructive force of flash flooding is a regular occurrence in the state and has caused a tremendous amount of damage and heartache over the years, no one until now has recorded in a single book the history of flash floods in Texas. After combing libraries and archives, grilling county historians, trekking to flood sites, and collecting scores of graphic photographs, Jonathan Burnett chose twenty-eight floods from around the state to create this narrative of a century of disastrous events. Beginning with the famous Austin dam break of 1900 and ending with the historic 2002 flooding in the Hill Country, Burnett chronicles the causes and courses of these catastrophic floods as well as their costs in material damage and human lives. Dramatic photographs of each event enhance the harrowing accounts of danger spawned by nature on a rampage. Together, the stories and the pictures give readers a vivid and lasting image of the power and unpredictability of flash floods in Texas. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

When in doubt, throw it out. Don't risk injury or infection. 2: Ask for help. Many people can do a lot of the cleanup and repairs discussed in this book. But if you have technical questions or do not feel comfortable doing something, get professional help. If there is a federal disaster declaration, a telephone "hotline" will often be publicized to provide information about public, private, and voluntary agency programs to help you recover from the flood. Government disaster programs are there to help you, the taxpayer. You're paying for them; check them out. 3: Floodproof. It is very likely that your home will be flooded again someday. Floodproofing means using materials and practices that will prevent or minimize flood damage in the future. Many floodproofing techniques are inexpensive or can be easily incorporated into your rebuilding program. You can save a lot of money by floodproofing as you repair and rebuild (see Step 8).

In the 1950s, a series of dams was proposed along the Brazos River in north-central Texas. For John Graves, this project meant that if the stream’s regimen was thus changed, the beautiful and sometimes brutal surrounding countryside would also change, as would the lives of the people whose rugged ancestors had eked out an existence there. Graves therefore decided to visit that stretch of the river, which he had known intimately as a youth. Goodbye to a River is his account of that farewell canoe voyage. As he braves rapids and fatigue and the fickle autumn weather, he muses upon old blood feuds of the region and violent skirmishes with native tribes, and retells wild stories of courage and cowardice and deceit that shaped both the river’s people and the land during frontier times and later. Nearly half a century after its initial publication, Goodbye to a River is a true American classic, a vivid narrative about an exciting journey and a powerful tribute to a vanishing way of life and its ever-changing natural environment.

The nation's network of more than 130 Next Generation Radars (NEXRADs) is used to detect wind and precipitation to help National Weather Service forecasters monitor and predict flash floods and other storms. This book assesses the performance of the Sulphur Mountain NEXRAD in Southern California, which has been scrutinized for its ability to detect precipitation in the atmosphere below 6000 feet. The book finds that the Sulphur Mountain NEXRAD provides crucial coverage of the lower atmosphere and is appropriately situated to assist the Los Angeles-Oxnard National Weather Service Forecast Office in successfully forecasting and warning of flash floods. The book concludes that, in general, NEXRAD technology is effective in mountainous terrain but can be improved.

For eighty-seven miles, the swift and shallow Blanco River winds through the Texas Hill Country. Its water is clear and green, darkened by frequent pools. Wes Ferguson and Jacob Botter have paddled, walked, and waded the Blanco. They have explored its history, people, wildlife, and the natural beauty that surprises everyone who experiences this river. Described as “the defining element in some of the Hill Country’s most beautiful scenery,” the Blanco flows both above and below ground, part of a network of rivers and aquifers that sustains the region’s wildlife and millions of humans alike. However, overpumping and prolonged drought have combined to weaken the Blanco’s flow and sustenance, and in 2000—for the first time in recorded history—the river’s most significant feeder spring, Jacob’s Well, briefly ceased to flow. It stopped again in 2008. Then, in the spring of 2015, a devastating flood killed twelve people and toppled the huge cypress trees along its banks, altering not just the look of the river, but the communities that had come to depend on its serene presence. River travelers Ferguson and Botter tell the remarkable story of this changeable river, confronting challenges and dangers as well as rare opportunities to see parts of the river few have seen. The authors also photographed and recorded the human response to the destruction of a beloved natural resource that has become yet another episode in the story of water in Texas. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.