Two dams are in danger of breaking and a small community in Bandera County is facing evacuation if more heavy rain falls.
The dams at Mosher Lake and Twin Lakes are damaged and if breached could flood about 20 households near Highway 173 and Jack Hollow Creek.
Bandera County Judge Richard Evans says notices have been handed to residents to be prepared to evacuate. “Sheriff’s office made person contact with them, everything’s okay but we’ve got all their phone numbers and contacts,” he said. “We’re not going to wait until it breaches, if it starts to rise, we’re going to go ahead and evacuate. We were lucky [Thursday morning] we got rain, but it was moderate. It was not a deluge so it actually did not breach it again.”
The two earthen dams were built in the 1950s. Judge Evans says the dams are on private property but Bandera County, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and other agencies are monitoring them.
“We’re involved particularly in the Twin Lakes because people live on the other side of it and we need to do emergency services. We’re trying to make sure it doesn’t fail plus just the simple fact that if it breaks we may lose some people and we don’t want that to happen.”
Bandera County and TCEQ cannot assess the damages or make any repairs to the dams until some of the water recedes.
