LAGUNA PARK, Texas — With no more rain, it could still take up to four weeks for levels at an area lake to get back to normal.
Lake Whitney, Wednesday afternoon, was still 22 feet over "full."
"The lake's doing its job, perfectly," Brady Dempsey, Regional Operations Project Manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said. "We hold a rain during a rain event so that it doesn't flood downstream and as downstream conditions improve, we start letting the water out."
Lake Whitney is one of five U.S.A.C.E. flood control lakes in Central Texas, along the Brazos River Basin (Aquilla, Waco, Belton, Stillhouse Hollow).
Dempsey, who works out of the Lake Whitney office near Laguna Park, said Lake Whitney is receiving significant focus, currently, because its flood pool is 55% full, compared to Lake Waco's 30%.
"We've just now kind of turned the point where the lake crested late yesterday," Dempsey said Wednesday. "So, we should start to creep down at this point."
And all five area corps lakes are in similar situations, with the other four needing to release water, as well, according to Dempsey.
"The ground was saturated, our lakes were full," U.S.A.C.E. Natural Resource Specialist Park Ranger Sean Jones, at Stillhouse Hollow, said. "We were almost back down to normal pool when this happened."
This, Dempsey and Jones said, is all due to recent flooding near Houston and while trying to get back to normal here at home, not endanger anyone downstream.
"It's really the only flood control lake directly on the Brazos," Dempsey said.