Insight: City of Austin's Flood Early Warning System
Scott Prinsen, Austin's Flood Early Warning Division program manager talked to David Yeomans on the program and the expected rain this weekend.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Scott Prinsen, Austin's Flood Early Warning Division program manager talked to David Yeomans on the program and the expected rain this weekend.
Read a transcription of the discussion below or use the video player above to watch.
DAVID: All right. Joining us this afternoon is Scott Princeton. He is Austin's flood early warning Division program manager. Scott, thank you so much for your time. Sure. So we've been talking leading up to this event, the National Weather Service is starting to use words like this may be a high impact flood event, rivers could go into major flood stage, the city of Austin's flood early warning system, you guys have been around for a while. And this is kind of the stuff that you prepare for, tell us how you keep people safe in these situations.
SCOTT: Yeah, so basically, our whole program was formed right after the deadly 1981 Memorial Day flood. So we've been in existence for a while. And we have a pretty big network of gauges. Also predictive modeling all kinds of tools that we have to help us along with our huge database of history of storms to really help us kind of predict where and potentially when some of these floods are going to occur in our creeks,
DAVID: You guys are really the one staying on top of all the moving pieces during the events and before. You’re a meteorologist, Scott, you have training in this, of course, we never know where the heaviest bull's eyes are going to be until they're happening. You never know which low-water crossings are going to be the most dangerous. But help us understand how you guys prepare for this. When you see something like this coming up this weekend.
SCOTT: As we ramp up our staffing, we'll do 24/7 coverage all the way until the threat ends. we're ramping up our crews getting them in position. And I was out this morning actually with our team inspecting along our field equipment and getting that ready for a potential event as well. So as we approach we're going to ramp all these things up. And then we start pushing out our messaging as we're doing now about the dangers of flash flooding.
DAVID: Speaking of that, if there were one thing or a couple of things that you wish everybody watching could remember and could know about the dangers of flash flooding. What would those be?
SCOTT: Well, there's a lot of them. Turn Around, Don't Drown. If you see water over the road, don't risk it. Turn Around, Don't Drown. Also, check ATX floods.com. That's the latest road closure information from Austin and surrounding counties. With this rain coming we got a lot of events this weekend, graduation students moving out of dorms, Mother's Day, maybe want to take a look at that map and just see some of the historical areas around there's a.on every spot of that map that's a known low water crossing or a flooded road potentially. So that made me think of an alternate way to get around that using that map for proofs for starters, and then you can plan and prepare for these things as well. You should start doing that now. ATX flood safety.com planning and preparing, signing up for emergency alerts. Finding out if you're in a floodplain you can find that information there as well.
DAVID: Very valuable. We do have the closed low water crossings map on kickstand.com for you this weekend as well. We've had a lot of people move here since the last floods like this some areas in our viewing area haven't seen floods like this in years. What's your message to the folks who are new here and maybe this wasn't a problem where they used to live?
SCOTT: Yeah, we are in the heart of flash flood alley we have all the right ingredients. We have the weather conditions, the rich moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, we've got the terrain, the topography here the steep slopes, the hills, and spin soils and it all just as ingredients for rapid rises and our creeks and streams we have heavy rainfall. So prepare for that stay weather aware plan, prepare and be weather aware is really the bottom line.
DAVID: Great message and as you said most problems happen in vehicles. So folks should plan to stay home and stay weather aware.
SCOTT: When you see those gate arms down when you see those barricades across the road turn around. If you've decided to go around that not only risking your life, you're risking the life of the people in your vehicle. And if we have to send out emergency crews are the safety crews out there to rescue you? You're putting their lives in danger as well. So again, simple message, Turn Around Don't Drown.
DAVID: Thank you. Scott Prinsen with the City of Austin. I'm sure you got a busy couple of days ahead.