Friday
August 28, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 100° / 78°Back to triple digits after last night's rain. Hat, water, early start.
- Air quality 59 · ModerateFine for most of us. If your lungs are touchy, take it a little easy.
- Lake Travis 96.4% fullThe lake is close to full — good for boats and for the summer water supply. Down a touch from last week.
- Allergies LowA little grasses and ragweed around — most noses won't notice.
- Power grid87,800 megawattsA busy grid this afternoon, but ERCOT expects enough to go around.
- Sunrise 7:05 a.m.The sun is up for 12 hours and 53 minutes today, and down by 7:58 p.m.
Good morning, Austin. It rained. After a month of watching the sky do nothing, Thursday evening finally delivered the real thing — thunder, a downpour, streets that smelled like wet asphalt again. It also delivered 70-mile-an-hour gusts, and in south Austin those gusts took a house down on the crew building it. So the rain we wanted came in hard. Today we get one more modest round in the afternoon, and then the weekend goes back to sunshine and a hundred degrees. Enjoy the smell while it lasts.
The Big Story
The rain Austin waited a month for arrived on 70-mph gusts
One construction worker was killed and another was airlifted to a hospital Thursday afternoon when a house being built in south Austin collapsed on them ahead of the first significant storms to cross Central Texas in weeks.
Travis County ESD 5 Fire Chief Chris Barron told KXAN that the house, at 12002 Salvador St. in the Estancia development, came down under gusts of 50 to 70 mph. Two people were caught underneath. One was dead when first responders arrived. Freeing the second took an extended effort because the structure was unstable; he was conscious and spoke with crews, and was flown to Dell Seton with injuries to his leg and ankle where the building had pinned him. His condition was not available Thursday night.
"Basically, the entire house collapsed," Barron said. He said the structure was still in the framing stage and may not have had enough support to stand up to gusts of that speed, and that a neighbor reported trees blowing nearly sideways. Two other people on the site got clear. The call came in at 4:24 p.m. as a medical assist and was upgraded to a rescue alarm, with the Austin Fire Department assisting.
The storms landed in what KXAN says is shaping up to be one of the driest Augusts on record; the station had called Thursday the last real chance of meaningful rain before the month closed. They also knocked out power: Austin Energy reported roughly 7,000 customers without electricity during the storm, and by 9:10 p.m. 41 outages were still affecting 1,085 customers. Viewers sent KXAN pictures of downed branches in south Austin, a possible gustnado near Dripping Springs and heavy rain over Lockhart.
Hours before any of it, the dry summer was already straining the water system west of town. Three Lake Travis ISD campuses — Rough Hollow Elementary, Lake Travis Middle School and Bee Cave Middle School — lost water pressure Thursday morning. The district kept classes going but offered parents the option to pick their children up early, and told CBS Austin that students were given bottled water and hand sanitizer in place of fountains and sinks.
The West Travis County Public Utility Agency said its storage tanks could not refill because water was leaving the system faster than the plant could produce it. Between 7 p.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Thursday, it said, about 5.27 million gallons went out in "irrigation-sized bursts" — 300,000 to nearly 600,000 gallons an hour — while the treatment plant produced about 14 million gallons and customers used about 14.8 million. The utility asked people to irrigate only on their assigned Stage 3 day, between 6 and 10 a.m.
"Traditionally water systems, what happens is overnight they get regenerated and the water transmission lines refill the water tanks," said Jack Meredith, president and CEO of Masonwood Development, who said the overnight demand spanned several neighborhoods. "We understand the frustration coming from everyone. But we have to realize the environment that we live in and that we have to be conscious about water."
The district said pressure was back at all three campuses shortly before 1:30 p.m. Sarah Wright, who lives in the area, told CBS Austin that the morning was chaos for working parents and that boil-water notices, low pressure and watering restrictions have grown more frequent over the decade she has lived there. "I don't understand how we've gotten where we're at," she said.
What's next: The National Weather Service gives Austin a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4 p.m. Friday, then sunshine and highs near 100 Saturday through Monday.
Sources: KXAN (house collapse), KXAN (storms and outages), KXAN (school water pressure), CBS Austin (school water pressure), National Weather Service (forecast)
The River
40 items · grouped by beat
Roads & transit
Austin police identified the man killed while riding an e-scooter on North MoPac as Lee Anthony Chavez-Avera, 32. The crash happened about 4:59 a.m. Aug. 26 in the 4600 block of the northbound lanes; preliminary reports say he was traveling against traffic and the driver changed lanes to avoid him. The driver stopped, called 911 and is cooperating. It is Austin's 54th fatal crash of 2026, with 54 deaths; on the same date last year the count was 68 crashes and 72 deaths. FOX 7 Austin
Bee Cave City Council decided Aug. 25 not to move forward with an ordinance allowing microtrenching, the practice of cutting a narrow channel in a street to lay fiber optic line. Representatives of AT&T and Google Fiber said the companies typically do not repair the road afterward. "They can put fiber in homes without cutting up our streets," Mayor Kara King said. Community Impact
Public safety & courts
Pflugerville said more than 400 agencies had accessed its Flock license plate reader system, though the city had authorized only 83. It said it cannot tell what data was taken, only that the unauthorized agencies reached the network, and has asked that all city data be deleted immediately and permanently. The council voted Tuesday to end the contract; all 28 cameras are off and covered. KXAN
The Hays County Sheriff's Office has asked commissioners to approve a 10-year Axon contract adding more than 15 AI tools to equipment deputies already use, including transcription, 911 call lookup, a policy chat feature and real-time translation through body cameras. Sheriff Anthony Hipolito said a three-month translation pilot was used more than 400 times across 44 conversations. Residents raised cost and accuracy concerns at Tuesday's Commissioners Court. KXAN
Prosecutors have dropped the escape charge against Xavier Gutierrez, 21, who the Hays County Sheriff's Office said walked out of jail July 18 by posing as another inmate due for release. His attorney, Chevo Pastrano, said a jail officer told Gutierrez he was the one going out and had him sign an electronic pad. Gutierrez was arrested in Guadalupe County on July 22. FOX 7 Austin
Federal and state officers searched the Austin, San Antonio and Plano offices of Plano-based Cadence McShane Construction on Aug. 26, the Austin Business Journal reported, citing more than a half-dozen eyewitnesses at Three Barton Skyway on South MoPac. Executive Vice President Srinath Kasturi said the activity involved a government agency obtaining records on a previous project, identified it as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and said no one was arrested. KXAN / Austin Business Journal
City Hall & county
Austin City Council voted unanimously Thursday to speed up work on rules for data centers, directing staff to return by December with land code amendments defining which facilities are allowed in the city — a step that could let the council ban the largest ones by the end of the year rather than waiting until spring 2027. Mayor Kirk Watson added an amendment requiring notice of any project above 20 megawatts or 85 million gallons of water a year. Austin Current / KXAN / FOX 7 Austin
Zoning officer Joi Harden said Austin's code covers data centers using up to 20 megawatts but has no rules for facilities above 75 megawatts, and that while staff have had inquiries, no request for a very large center has been filed. The city has 10 smaller ones. Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said she and at least four colleagues want a full ban: "We won't wait for a crisis to happen here." Watson told staff to "read the room." KUT / Austin Current
The council passed by consent a resolution from Council Member Krista Laine designating the Austin Public Library a "Book Safe Harbor," committing the city to safeguarding equitable access to library materials and the freedom to read. Laine brought it a week after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for removing certain books from public schools, and named titles on his list that are in the collection, among them Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye." KXAN
Council members adopted a resolution to write city rules on mold, covering standards and protocols for inspection and remediation and requiring housing developments that take city funding or incentives to inspect HVAC, plumbing, ventilation and drainage systems regularly and keep remediation plans. The city manager is to bring back a draft ordinance by May 2027. KXAN
The council granted historic landmark zoning to Bethany Cemetery on Springdale Road, nearly 50 years after the first push for recognition. The six-acre cemetery was founded in 1893 for Austin's Black community and holds Civil War veteran and Buffalo Soldier William Ellick and Easter Pease, once enslaved by former Gov. Elisha Pease. "Every stone in Bethany Cemetery has a story," said Sue Spears, president of the Bethany Cemetery Association. CBS Austin
Watson presented retiring Austin Fire Chief Joel Baker with a Distinguished Service Award for seven years and eight months leading the department, and the council confirmed Assistant Chief Tom Vocke as interim chief effective Sept. 1. "Big act to follow and filling those size 15 shoes is not going to be easy," said Vocke, a 29-year veteran of the department. KXAN / Community Impact
A budget amendment from Council Member Vanessa Fuentes moves $20,000 of the city's consultant spending to Sip Safely, which supplies drink-spiking test strips to bars. Fuentes said participating bars have run out. The city says 70 bars take part, 3,500 strips have gone to them and about 1,950 have been handed to customers. KXAN
Mayor Watson told KXAN's Inside Austin's Agenda why he voted against the city budget and against pulling the 911 call center out of the police department. "I think part of it is politics. It is some folks that don't like the police department, don't like the police budget," Watson said. Council Member Mike Siegel, who led the change, has said moving the center would speed response times, particularly in outlying parts of the city. KXAN
Travis County is adding money and seats to afterschool care. An analysis by the Andy Roddick Foundation found 23 percent of the county's priority-population students can get a seat and 17 percent can get one running all five days, with more than 1,100 children waitlisted. Raising Travis County has put $51.7 million into child care and afterschool programs, funding 7,791 slots. Community Impact
A petition asking the city to bar personal watercraft from Lake Austin is drawing signatures after a jet ski struck a float carrying Christy Spencer's children, who were not hurt. It calls for a year-round ban or one covering weekends in the busiest months. Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said she supports further evaluation of safety risks and enforcement. Austin police say they run one patrol boat on the lake on weekends. KXAN
Schools
McCallum High School asked families Thursday to donate quiet portable fans after air conditioning failed in multiple portables and classrooms. Principal Andy Baxa said several fixes had been made and the rest would take longer. Teachers brought fans from home, which the school said were not enough for full classrooms. Donations can be dropped at the front office at 5600 Sunshine Drive. CBS Austin
Dripping Springs ISD trustees approved raising breakfast prices 10 cents and lunch prices 25 cents at an Aug. 24 meeting. Chief Operations Officer Scott Berry said a deficit in the child nutrition budget obliged the district to act under Texas Department of Agriculture rules. Rather than take the full recommended increase, the district will put about $150,000 from the child nutrition fund balance toward holding prices down. Community Impact
UT-Austin has put hand scanners in its three campus dining halls, replacing the ID tap for students on a meal plan. Lenore Musick, assistant vice president for dining services, said the scanner turns a fingerprint image into a 10-digit code tied to the meal plan, and that the halls served more than 19,000 students on the first day of the semester against a usual 12,000 to 15,000. The Daily Texan
UT cut freshman orientation from three days to two this summer, lowering the cost to families to $271 per student, about 20 percent less than previous years. Longhorn Orientation director Kyle St. Nicolas said the shorter program meant smaller groups and a more personalized experience. Two orientation advisers, speaking anonymously under campus policy, said the compressed schedule left some students registering for classes hours after their advising appointment. The Daily Texan
A federal judge dismissed the Texas American Federation of Teachers' lawsuit against Education Commissioner Mike Morath over state investigations into teachers' social media posts about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Judge Alan D. Albright found the case as filed lacked proof for the union's claims and dismissed it without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled. The union argued a letter Morath sent two days after the killing amounted to new policy. KXAN
Health
Dozens of protesters organized by National Nurses United gathered Thursday outside the Austin offices of venture firm 8VC, at Riverside Drive and South Congress, as part of a nationwide demonstration against Palantir's role in health care. Monica Gonzalez of the union said the site was chosen because 8VC co-founder Joe Lonsdale also co-founded Palantir. She objected to staffing decisions made by software: "Those should be human decisions." KUT's report carried no response from Palantir, 8VC or HCA Healthcare. KUT / CBS Austin
Electricity costs in Texas have risen about 30 percent since 2020, the sharpest increase in the country, according to an investigation by Public Health Watch published with KUT. It reports that Texans in deregulated markets paid more on average than customers of public utilities, and follows a Hutto family whose May bill came to $545 in a house they cannot afford to leave warm because of a heart condition. Gov. Greg Abbott blamed public utilities for rising costs on Aug. 4 and said inviting private providers to compete with them would lower bills. KUT
Business & tech
Paramount Skydance is in advanced talks to lease the 531,000-square-foot Bluebonnet Business Center at 9219 Old Manor Road for a movie and TV studio, the New York Post reported on Aug. 19, citing three people with direct knowledge; no agreement has been announced. The Austin Business Journal notes the reports come as the company fights a multi-state lawsuit led by California over its $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. KXAN / Austin Business Journal
AEG Presents will call its 65,000-square-foot East Austin venue United Heritage Hall under a naming rights deal with United Heritage Credit Union. It is slated to open in spring 2027 as the anchor of River Park, a 109-acre mixed-use development from Presidium planned for 10 million square feet in Riverside. Community Impact
Dripping Springs is expanding its South Regional Wastewater Reclamation Facility from about 162,500 to 822,500 gallons a day after a seven-year court fight ended with the Texas Supreme Court siding with the city and the state environmental agency in 2025. The city secured an additional $51.5 million through a Texas Water Development Board loan. The plant has been near capacity and unable to take most new large connections. Community Impact
Developers presented Leander City Council on Aug. 20 with conceptual plans for 2,250 single-family homes across 833 acres near CR 280, on the Friou and Sullivan tracts, financed through municipal utility districts. "There's no action," City Manager Todd Parton said. "There's nothing that council is committing to tonight." Most of both tracts are zoned for rural single-family use now. Community Impact
Around town
Le Garage Sale turns 25 this weekend at the Palmer Events Center, with more than 140 boutiques, brands and designers selling discounted clothing, vintage, jewelry and home goods. It runs Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with tickets starting at $12. CBS Austin
Bridges International is helping international students at UT furnish apartments through the university's Surplus Reuse Store, where retired campus furniture gets a second life. "Tables, chairs, sofas, things like that," said Raghav, an incoming graduate student from Chennai. Volunteer Micaiah Kuhl described his role as "muscle to help out lifting all of the heavy, heavy furniture." CBS Austin
Buda has adopted an ordinance allowing pot-bellied pigs in residential neighborhoods. Owners must register with the city's Animal Control Division and get a permit before bringing one home, with a maximum of two per household and requirements covering spaying and neutering, housing and property inspections. The city notes the ordinance does not override homeowners association rules. FOX 7 Austin
Texas
The Ross Fire has burned about 85,000 acres across Palo Pinto and Jack counties since Monday, making it one of the largest wildfires in the Dallas-Fort Worth area's recorded history. The Texas A&M Forest Service put containment at 21 percent Thursday afternoon. No injuries have been reported; some rural residents were advised to evacuate and some structures have been damaged, including the 800-acre Worth Ranch. The service counts 80 active fires statewide. The Texas Tribune
President Donald Trump landed in Houston on Thursday to headline a Republican National Committee fundraiser for Ken Paxton's Senate campaign, his first appearance for the attorney general's bid. "We're working very hard. We want to win that race," Trump said before departing Washington. He is expected to honor the Artemis II crew at Johnson Space Center on Friday. The Texas Tribune
Sen. John Cornyn said he will not raise money for Paxton, directing his fundraising to Senate races in New Hampshire, Michigan and Alaska instead, and calling Texas a "black hole when it comes to campaign cash." Cornyn said he opposes Democrat James Talarico's policies and still wants Republicans to hold the Senate. A person close to Paxton said the attorney general has courted Cornyn's largest donors. The Texas Tribune
A Texas Public Opinion Research poll of 1,000 likely voters taken Aug. 21-24, with a margin of error of 3.3 points, put Talarico ahead of Paxton 48 to 42 in the Senate race, Gov. Greg Abbott ahead of Gina Hinojosa 49 to 42, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick ahead of Vikki Goodwin 47 to 41, and Mayes Middleton ahead of Nathan Johnson 44 to 41 for attorney general. FOX 7 notes the group describes itself as nonpartisan and is run by Luke Warford, a Democrat who ran for the Railroad Commission in 2022. FOX 7 Austin
Gov. Abbott's "pause" on new data center approvals, ordered Aug. 3 pending a state audit of their energy and water use, has drawn questions about its reach. "I have pressed pause on any new data center being able to join the operations in the state of Texas," Abbott said Sunday on ABC. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said that without new laws the directive is "all hat and no cattle." KUT
At least 248 data centers are planned in Texas, and farmers say they are losing ground to them. Cheyenne Buerger, a fourth-generation farmer near Stamford, told The Texas Tribune his landlord sold 600 acres to a buyer for a Google data center and he was given 60 days to finish his crop and leave. Texas has more farmland than any state, 126 million acres as of 2021. The Texas Tribune
The Texas Department of Public Safety said six people were arrested Aug. 12 and about $12 million in assets seized in a West Texas oil theft investigation that ran 17 search warrants across Texas and at least one Oklahoma county. West Region Chief Jose Sanchez said the seizures included about $786,000 in cash, eight bank accounts holding roughly $8 million and about 2,600 barrels of petroleum. Names were not released. FOX 7 Austin
Surrogates and parents who used surrogacy are pressing Texas lawmakers not to restrict the practice before the next session. Some senators have signaled support for barring foreign nationals from using Texas surrogates, and the state Republican platform this year backs such a ban. The debate sharpened this month when an Alaskan surrogate petitioned a Dallas court for custody of the baby she carried, a case that is still open. The Texas Tribune
Sports
Good Good Golf will not be title sponsor of the PGA Tour's Nov. 12-15 stop at Omni Barton Creek after backlash to an ad showing a man shoving a woman to the ground. "We recognize that we have work to do as an organization," CEO Matt Kendrick said. The tour said it agreed with the decision and will announce sponsorship plans later; the tournament goes ahead as scheduled. FOX 7 Austin
High school football opened Thursday night. Navarro beat McCallum 27-14, and the Cedar Ridge-East View game was called at halftime because of the weather. KXAN
River sources: FOX 7 (MoPac scooter crash) · Community Impact (Bee Cave fiber) · KXAN (Pflugerville Flock) · KXAN (Hays County AI contract) · FOX 7 (escape charge dropped) · KXAN (contractor offices searched) · Austin Current (data center vote) · KXAN (data center vote) · FOX 7 (data center vote) · KUT (data center vote) · KXAN (Book Safe Harbor) · KXAN (mold resolution) · CBS Austin (Bethany Cemetery) · KXAN (fire chief) · Community Impact (interim fire chief) · KXAN (Sip Safely) · KXAN (Watson on 911 and the budget) · Community Impact (afterschool care) · KXAN (Lake Austin petition) · CBS Austin (McCallum fans) · Community Impact (DSISD meal prices) · The Daily Texan (dining hall scanners) · The Daily Texan (shorter orientation) · KXAN (teacher union suit dismissed) · KUT (Palantir protest) · CBS Austin (Palantir protest) · KUT (electricity costs) · KXAN (Paramount and Austin) · Community Impact (United Heritage Hall) · Community Impact (Dripping Springs wastewater) · Community Impact (Leander homes) · CBS Austin (Le Garage Sale) · CBS Austin (Bridges International) · FOX 7 (Buda pigs) · The Texas Tribune (Ross Fire) · The Texas Tribune (Trump in Houston) · The Texas Tribune (Cornyn) · FOX 7 (statewide poll) · KUT (Abbott's data center pause) · The Texas Tribune (data centers and farmland) · FOX 7 (oil theft ring) · The Texas Tribune (surrogacy) · FOX 7 (Good Good Golf) · KXAN (Navarro-McCallum) · KXAN (Cedar Ridge-East View)
Weather
Today: sunny with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4 p.m., a high near 100 and heat index values as high as 107, on a southeast wind of 0 to 5 mph. Chance of rain is 20 percent. There are no active alerts for Travis County. Tonight: mostly clear with a low around 78. The weekend stays sunny and near 100 Saturday, Sunday and Monday. National Weather Service
KXAN says Friday brings one more, weaker round of spotty rain and storms in the afternoon and evening, with less coverage and intensity than Thursday, and that most of the area will stay dry. The weekend turns sunnier, hotter and more humid, with a stray shower possible over the far eastern counties Saturday. KXAN
Overheard on Reddit
Washed my truck finally, you are welcome south Austin
Sweet moisture from the sky!
The Climate Prediction Center's September outlook gives Central Texas near-normal odds for rainfall, which KXAN notes would be far wetter than an August shaping up as one of the driest on record. The temperature outlook leans warmer than normal for September and for the fall, following what is currently the 10th hottest summer on record. September normally brings about 3.5 inches of rain. KXAN
The Austin metro has the largest concentration of at-risk homes of any metro area outside California, with more than 100,000 properties and $49.2 billion in reconstruction value exposed to wildfire, according to Cotality's 2026 Wildfire Risk Report. As of Aug. 25, about 21 percent of western Travis County was abnormally dry, 67 percent was in moderate drought and 10 percent of the far eastern county was in severe drought. Travis County remains under a burn ban. Community Impact
Weather sources: National Weather Service (forecast) · National Weather Service (active alerts) · KXAN (Friday forecast) · KXAN (fall outlook) · Community Impact (wildfire risk)
8 days until Texas football · Texas State at DKR, Sept. 5, 2:30 p.m.
The Cedar Park Police Department has a new officer who is not there to catch anyone. Brody, the department's first wellness and community K9, was donated by Puppies Behind Bars, a nonprofit that has incarcerated people raise service dogs for veterans and first responders. His job is to sit with officers after hard calls and to meet residents at community events. "Police work can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also take a toll," Chief Mike Harmon said. "Brody gives us another way to take care of the people who spend their careers taking care of others."