Officials To Cedar Park Flood Victims: 'No Viable Solution'

Residents in one Cedar Park neighborhood get worried almost every time it rains.

They’re worried because nearby Buttercup Creek keeps flooding, and recently water officials said there was nothing that they could do about it.

Ruth Haberman of the Upper Brushy Creek Water Control and Improvement District said Monday that there was no viable solution to stopping the floods that originate from the creek, reported KEYE.

It all points back to a complicated history of when these houses were built, and under which standards.

The houses are built in an inundation easement for a dam operated by the Water Control and Improvement District. That dam has been in operation since 1953. The homes were built in the 1970s under county standards and were not annexed by the City of Cedar Park until 1977, Jennie Huerta, a media and communications manager for the city told Patch.

• Want more Cedar Park and Leander news? Click here for our daily newsletter and news alerts.

But residents of Riviera Drive such as Lucio Camacho, are more concerned with the present situation. Recent rainstorms flooded his backyard, and water nearly rose up to his porch.

“[It’s a] huge swimming pool, you can go swimming there in the back,” Camacho told KEYE.

Camacho just moved into the neighborhood, and wasn’t worried about the rain this weekend. Now he knows why his neighbors were uncomfortable when the creek rose over its bank.

But Camacho should consider himself lucky it’s just his backyard that is flooded. Neighbor Liliana Biggerstaff told KEYE that when tropical storm Hermine hit in 2010, the house Camacho’s recently moved into was flooded to the roof.

When Biggerstaff talked to city officials on Monday, they told her that while they were concerned, the water control district, not the city, was in charge of drainage for the area.

This once again points back to the construction of the houses. Under city standards, Cedar Park would not let a home be built where Camacho’s currently stands. However, it was built before that land was under Cedar Park jurisdiction.

“We need to do something, otherwise one day our house will be with water up to the roof,” Biggerstaff told KEYE.