Flooding at KAUS Austin

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Scott@KTYR

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Scott@KTYR
I just saw that KAUS Austin’s airport was shut down this morning due to flooding.
As of 1:00pm I think they are back open?
 
Scott@KTYR said:
I just saw that KAUS Austin’s airport was shut down this morning due to flooding.
As of 1:00pm I think they are back open?
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Tracon is flooded. ZHU is handling the traffic. My understanding is that it's one-in/one-out at the moment, even for the airlines.
 
Yes TRACON is closed and KAUS is officially Class E. Freaky.

We got hit hard here.
 
It is incredible what is going on at the Austin airport today. We had a 150 year rain event with a few tornadoes thrown in for good measure.

The area around the airport was one of the hardest hit areas. The control tower building was sitting like a Lighthouse sticking out of a lake. Many controllers have lost their cars in the floods. They were trapped in the control tower for a long time.

The TRACON equipment is in the basement of the tower, reports are that it flooded. For a while the tower reopened with the controllers trying to control with handheld radios and no radar.

This afternoon the decision was made to close the tower. Right now at 7 PM, Bergstrom is a class E airport. The tower frequency is being used as a Unicom frequency, all the airliners and business jets are following class E uncontrolled airport procedures.

Radar services are coming from Houston Center and are very limited. Pilots are waiting up to four hours for release times via telephone.

AirPort operations vehicles are talking directly to airliners on the taxiway to coordinate ground operations.

"Austin traffic Delta 123, Boeing 757, 5 mile final, runway 17 left ATPA!"

Live ATC is fasinating right now.
 
Thanks for the update, I didn't know they very forced to close the tower too.

Listening to ATClive now, thanks for the heads up, very spooky to hear "Austin traffic, Airbus on 5 mile final 17R" on a frequency of a busy International airport. Eeeeerie. Just in time for Halloween.
 
Man, what a fascinating day at Bergstrom. I've been glued to the liveatc feed for a good part the evening. Hearing a Speedbird 787 taxiing into the departure sequence at a Class E airport is not something you hear very often.
 
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Waiting on the 9 o'clock evening news to see some good footage.
I wonder about the terminal. If the tower is sticking out of water like a lighthouse, taxiing might not come easy and offloading passengers sure can prove difficult. Again, waiting for the evening news, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Btw, tryanc, welcome to PoA. Hope you didn't have an airplane at KAUS.
 
Haha...Airliners asking each other for the right of way on the taxiway....Airbus asking "if there is any traffic in the area, please advise", Another asking "Do you have a frequency for Houston", "Anybody seen a 737 that should be in front of us?"....comedy gold.
 
The evening news was full of flooding pictures and videos but just a short mention on the airport condition. I assume because it is easier to get regular people to talk on camera than obtain a permission to enter and videotape on airport property.
One thing that I learned from the news that I hadn't heard before is that they shut down I-35 down south and the same Interstate got flooded with a few feet of water up north by Waco. That shows the severity of the flooding down here. If I got the numbers right, the old record was 4.x" of rain in one day at KAUS, the new record set today was 15.8".
 
Listened for a while last night. All pretty well done.
'I was wondering' points:
1. be nice to know how much capacity is reduced when no tower or app facility there ie 1/2 or 1/4 of that with atc?
2. are there carriers whose company policy prohibits such operations and were therefore grounded during the event?
 
does this mean they expect to be ots til Monday?
!AUS 10/110 AUS SVC TWR CLSD 1510302300-1511021800
 
If the equipment flooded, I imagine that's not a quick fix.
 
As of this morning, our three planes were undamaged, but they are trapped in their hangers because the power was out and we couldn't open the doors.

The airport had 14" of rain yesterday.

I hear some talk on the radio about a portable tower, consider that a rumor.
 
I am guessing that the airport, and all airports have emergency plans that include ATC outages and how they will respond to such outages. Or am I talking silly here?
 
JimNtexas said:
I hear some talk on the radio about a portable tower, consider that a rumor.
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The USAF has mobile radar units (pic of one on my profile pic) w/ surveillance and PAR along with mobile control towers that have been used before, military and civilian airports. They are assigned to Combat Communications units, active duty and Air Nat Guard. The 5th CCG is at Robins AFB near Macon Ga for instance.
 
SCCutler said:
I guess I don't understand why they don't roll out a portable ATC solution.
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KTUL has the portable ATC trailer in use for another bunches if months while they deal with an asbestos abatement.

So it is a possible solution for KAUS.
 
I just called Atlantic and they said that they are getting a 'little action', I did not ask what the 'little action' was, (she said it 3 times) but asked about the tower. She said she did not know.

The last time I got a 'little action' was before I got married.

So, anyone who needs a 'little action', Atlantic is the place to be right now.
 
SCCutler said:
I guess I don't understand why they don't roll out a portable ATC solution.
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They will if they think the tower will be out of service for long. The FAA has a range of solutions, from some radios and stuff in a box to a tower cab on a fifth-wheel trailer.
 
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AUS wasn't accepting us airline guys, either. Had to divert this morning flying from CVG to IAH. The folks at AUS said they couldn't accept us due to the flooding so we ended up diverting to SAT instead. I believe they had a portable tower going, though, since the main ATC tower was still flooded. I was supposed to be relaxing on a beach in SoCal for 20 hours, instead I'm stuck 27 hours in Houston because we timed out on block for the day. Darn Texas weather. :(
 
matthammer said:
AUS wasn't accepting us airline guys, either. Had to divert this morning flying from CVG to IAH. The folks at AUS said they couldn't accept us due to the flooding so we ended up diverting to SAT instead. I believe they had a portable tower going, though, since the main ATC tower was still flooded. I was supposed to be relaxing on a beach in SoCal for 20 hours, instead I'm stuck 27 hours in Houston because we timed out on block for the day. Darn Texas weather. :(
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Thanks for the update.
And I sure hope the tower wasn't flooded because the whole city would be! :eek: That is one tall tower. If it floods, half of TX would be the new Gulf of Mexiko now. :)
 
The basement of the tower flooded and pretty much wiped out all the electronics and communications for both TRACON and tower.

There is now a portable tower operating. I think they were using handhelds when I flew on Sunday, but today I understand they have good radios anyway.

The TRACON controllers were sent to San Antonio and will be taking over approach and departure control duties from Houston Center shortly.

The big limfac is IFR releases. The AOPA reported that the FAA says to expect around a 149 minute wait time for IFR releases, because KAUS has only phone lines for coordination.

Sunday there was a long line of airliners and business jets waiting for release lined up on the taxiway to the single runway they were using.

VFRs could slip out with only a short delay.

It's going to be a long time until KAUS has its on TRACON again.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I am guessing that the airport, and all airports have emergency plans that include ATC outages and how they will respond to such outages. Or am I talking silly here?
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It's quite simple, it's like any other time the tower is closed, it reverts to E airspace and is handled as such. VFR the impact shouldn't really be too severe, but IFR, oyyyy....
 
I read on another board that the airplanes flying around aren't the problem so much as getting an IFR release. One guy said he got an 8-hour delay. Glad we're not scheduled to go to Austin soon. Wonder if the FBOs were flooded too.
 
So I take the Approach Control for the whole area is down, or are the delays contained to AUS? Is VFR an option weather wise?
 
Yes, CAVU here since Sunday so VFR is no problem at all. It was all the IFR departures and arrivals on Saturday and Sunday. The biggest trouble comes from IFR releases, as Jim pointed out. But they're on top of it.
Last night's news showed a MCU on field running GND and TWR so that is definitely taken care of. They even gave the news crew permission to film inside the base of the tower where the water reached about a foot high (on the ground floor). They were not allowed access to the TRACON. :( Hoping that they will show it one of these nights. I have never seen our local TRACON and a few pictures on the news might just do it. :)
 
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