The flash flooding on October 13th devastated many areas in Austin. The rain was so severe it caused the cancellation of the last day of ACL festivities, along with the closing of several businesses. Many houses were damaged and flooded as well, including senior Tristan Huebner’s home.
Despite the heavy rains the day before, no one was quite prepared for the severity of the flash flooding.
“It was the night of the 12th when it started; we didn’t know it was going to be as bad as it was,” Huebner said.
He explained that the game room in his home sits lower than the rest of the house and was already flooded by the time they went to check up on it. The family started pulling out everything they could grab, and got the majority of the stuff out the same night.
The harsh rains started at midnight and carried on into the early morning.
“Around 4 am it started raining again and by about 6 the creek came back up and the room started to flood again but this time it didn’t last long and it went down quick,” Huebner said.
Up to 9.5 inches of rain were recorded in Austin from that night, and the Huebner home got its fair share of it.
“Once the water came in it kept rising and at the highest point there was probably about five inches of water in the game room,” Huebner said.
The flash flooding brought about a lot of damage to his home.
“Other than the room flooding it also washed away our fence in the back yard and wasted out our drive way to where we couldn’t drive on it,” Huebner said.
Huebner’s father, Dan had built that home when he was 26 years old and was shocked by the aftermath of the flooding.
“It’s the worst I have ever seen it,” Dan  said.
“I’ve lived there all my life and it was tough on me so I can only imagine how bad it was on my dad,” Huebner said.
Austin received devastating flash flooding again on Halloween night. Up to 14 inches of rain were recorded that night. More than 100 people were evacuated and rescued from the floodwaters, and more than 500 homes were damaged.