Friday
September 11, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 101° / 78°Triple digits again. Water bottle, shade, and an early start.
- Air quality 27 · GoodClear air. A great day to be outside.
- Lake Travis 93.2% fullThe lake is close to full — good for boats and for the summer water supply. Down a touch from last week.
- Power grid NormalA busy afternoon: demand near 87,600 megawatts, with 108,200 on hand.
- Sunrise 7:13 a.m.The sun is up for 12 hours and 28 minutes today, and down by 7:41 p.m.
Good morning, Austin. One hundred and one today, with a heat index that will find 107 again, so the shady side of the street is public property until further notice. There is a ten percent chance of rain this afternoon, which is the forecast's polite way of saying no. The sun came up at 7:13 and goes down at 7:41. Down on Guadalupe a card shop opens this morning across from the campus, which means somebody is going to spend a long lunch hour sorting cardboard and enjoying every minute of it. A bell rings at Buford Tower at 7:46. The weekend holds at 102, so take the water with you and start early.
The Briefing
Three road-death notices in one day, in a year running behind last year
The Austin Police Department (APD) published three traffic fatality notices on Thursday. Each one ends with a sentence almost nobody reads: a count of this year against the last.
The deaths came first. Lilliana Segura was nine, a passenger in a Jeep Compass that collided with a Tesla Cybertruck where the Interstate 35 service road meets the East Ben White Boulevard service road, at 7:41 a.m. Wednesday. She died at a hospital. The other child in the Jeep is still in critical condition, and APD's Vehicular Homicide Unit is working out what happened. John Michael Filley was walking in the 13300 block of North Farm-to-Market 620 just after midnight on Sept. 5 when a vehicle struck him; he died Thursday. The driver stayed at the scene and was not impaired. Kim Bao Hoang was riding a motorcycle north on the Capital of Texas Highway at 10:49 p.m. on Sept. 4, failed to hold a curve, and hit a guardrail.
Now the sentence. By this date in 2025, Austin had recorded 71 fatal crashes and 75 deaths. Filley's is the city's 57th fatal crash of 2026, and its 57th death.
What's next: Austin Water sounds the Longhorn Dam floodgate warning sirens for five minutes at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15.
Sources: Austin Police Department (the Segura crash), Austin Police Department (Filley, and the 57th fatal crash), Austin Police Department (Hoang), CBS Austin (identifying the child), KXAN (the year's running count)
City Desk
Money & bills
Diesel set another record in Austin, and a pickup tank now runs $190
The average gallon of diesel in Austin reached about $5.63 on Friday morning, the American Automobile Association (AAA) reported, against $5.67 statewide and more than $6 nationally. A year ago the Austin average was about $3.24. Filling a Ford F-250's 34-gallon tank costs roughly $190 today and would have cost about $110 last September. CBS Austin
County law enforcement asks commissioners for a $10 million technology contract
The Travis County Sheriff's Office, county park rangers and county constables want the county's $4.58 million contract with Axon Enterprise lifted to $10 million in the fiscal year 2027 budget. The agencies said 1,100 jail cameras must be replaced by the end of 2026 and that federal rules force them to retire Chinese-made drones. The Coalition for Budget Accountability rallied against the increase on Thursday. KXAN
Also
Redfin reported that 82.3% of Austin homes sold below their original asking price in August, the highest share of the Texas metros it listed, with a median sale price of $413,543. KXAN
City Council pulled a $5 million package of 17 consulting contracts from Thursday's agenda, the second withdrawal this year; Council Member Mike Siegel called it a victory for transparency and accountability. Community Impact
A new state law requires solar panel businesses and their salespeople to register with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which will investigate complaints and bring enforcement action. KXAN
Overheard on Reddit
Is it common in Austin for a plumber not to pull a permit for a hot water heater replacement?
Just had my hot water heater replaced and asked the plumber about when the City would be coming out to inspect the work, and he told me that wasn’t something that is typically done in Austin. I’m not sure whether to make it an issue and wondered what others in town have done when they had a plumber install a hot water heater. Looking for info so I can make a good decision going forward.
Public safety & courts
A 21-year-old is charged in the killing of a 17-year-old on Woodland Avenue
Austin police and the United States Marshals Service arrested Santana Gonzales on Wednesday in the Aug. 30 shooting of Edwin Pulgar, who was found in a car that had crashed into a fence. Court records show Gonzales was serving a five-year deferred adjudication sentence for a 2023 aggravated robbery charge. Police link him to several other shootings in the month before. KXAN
Also
Police identified the nine-year-old killed in Wednesday's Interstate 35 service road crash as Lilliana Segura; the second child hurt in the Jeep remains in critical condition. CBS Austin
Rodney Rawlings, 44, is charged with first-degree murder after an autopsy found Diego Rocha died in June 2025 of the toxic effects of fentanyl and alprazolam, drugs police say Rawlings supplied. Austin Police Department
Austin police ran 80 hours of extra drunk-driving enforcement between Aug. 14 and Sept. 7, stopping drivers 188 times and issuing eight arrests, 83 citations and 132 warnings. Austin Police Department
Council redirected $20,000 of consultant money to Sip Safely, the city's free drink-spiking test strip program now carried by 70 bars, at Council Member Vanessa Fuentes's request. KXAN
A federal judge blocked Austin from euthanizing Major, a Belgian Malinois held at the Austin Animal Center more than 500 days, while his owner pursues a disability lawsuit. Austin American-Statesman
Austin Public Health confirmed Travis County's second measles case of 2026, an unvaccinated infant likely exposed while travelling abroad, and listed the clinics the child visited while infectious. Austin Public Health
Austin firefighters mark 25 years since the Sept. 11 attacks with a 7:46 a.m. silence at Buford Tower and a climb of 1,368 feet at the Pleasant Valley Training Tower. CBS Austin
Growth & infrastructure
Near the future rail stations, the affordable units have to be in the building
City Council voted unanimously on Thursday to close the fee-in-lieu option for projects using the citywide density bonus program inside the Equitable Transit Oriented District, so a developer seeking extra height near a Project Connect station must now put the affordable homes on site. A second item steers money already collected toward households earning 30% of the median family income. Austin Current
Also
Awais Azhar of HousingWorks said mobility costs matter for low-income households and affordable homes should sit near transit. Greg Anderson of the Austin Housing Coalition said the requirement risks no units at all. Austin Current
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) drawdown of Lake Austin would cost about 200 jobs and $2.5 million over six weeks, Mozart's co-owner Ken Leonard told Council on Thursday. CBS Austin
Austin Water sounds the Longhorn Dam floodgate warning sirens at 10 a.m. Tuesday for five continuous minutes; the dam's sidewalk along Pleasant Valley Road closes to walkers during the test. Austin Water
Thornton Road stays shut to through traffic from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for storm drain work off South Lamar Boulevard, with detours by Del Curto Road and Bluebonnet Lane. City of Austin
A $30 million, book-shaped Ayn Rand Center is going up at West Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and San Gabriel Street, privately funded and due to open in 2028. KXAN
Overheard on Reddit
Why is AT&T so slow??
I’ve got one bar of signal in my own home, wtf?
City Hall & county
Travis County joined a federal suit over President Trump's mail-ballot order. County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado called it a solution in search of a problem; the order's fact sheet cites election integrity. The Daily Texan
Community Impact published candidate questionnaires this week for the Austin City Council seats in District 5 and District 8, both on the November ballot. Community Impact
The Texas chapter of the American Planning Association gave its gold award for historic preservation to Austin's Equity-Based Preservation Plan, which more than 2,500 residents helped write. City of Austin
Schools
Austin Independent School District's deadline to appeal the preliminary failing ratings at Burnet and Webb middle schools falls today, the step that decides whether the state must step in. Austin Current
Business & street life
Red River's venues ask the city to write preservation into its incentives
The Red River Cultural District sent an open letter to city officials on Tuesday asking Austin to speed up a special zoning area for the district and to tie cultural preservation to the downtown development incentives it is rewriting. City staff told the mayor and Council the same day that any tools they settle on would go into a phase two proposal due in spring 2027. Austin American-Statesman
Also
Koriente, Feels So Good, Empire Control Room & Garage and Marlow have all closed in the past year; Valhalla Tavern goes this fall, and the Elysium building is for sale. Austin American-Statesman
Overheard on Reddit
ATX Drop your weirdest myth and legends here
Collecting Austin folklore. Ghosts, cryptids, haunted spots, cursed places, weird history literally anything. Edit: would also love to hear any of your grandparents stories
Mo Bamba Cards & Collectibles opens today at 2350 Guadalupe Street, across from the University of Texas at Austin, where its owner played one basketball season before the 2018 draft. Austin Chronicle
Casa Fina, a Spanish tapas restaurant and bar, is due to open this month in the Zilker Park neighborhood after announcing its plans in April. Community Impact
Overheard on Reddit
Found bird [parakeet in Crestview]
Anyone misplace a parakeet in Crestview? Flew into my backyard and I managed to catch it. It’s safe with some food and water in a box. HMU if you think it’s yours? Edit: I think yall in the bird owners community call them budgies
Weather
Today: mostly sunny, then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms, with a high near 101 and a heat index reaching 107. Southeast wind 5 to 10 miles per hour. No active alerts for Travis County. Tonight: low around 78. Saturday and Sunday both reach 102. National Weather Service
Today's ten percent rain chance is the last decent one before the weekend dries out entirely, KXAN's forecasters said, and next week holds well above the low 90s that are normal for the middle of September. KXAN
Austin's official high is taken in shaded, ventilated air, which is why a car thermometer parked on hot asphalt reads 110 or more on a day the airport records 107, CBS Austin's meteorologists said. CBS Austin
The Back Page
24 days until the voter registration deadline · Texans must be registered by Oct. 5 to vote in the Nov. 3 election; early voting runs Oct. 19 through Oct. 30.
Covenant Presbyterian Church had money left over in its 2025 budget, and the elders handed it to the mission committee with instructions to think creatively about it. The committee gave away $200,000: $75,000 each to Foundation Communities and Undue Medical Debt, $25,000 each to St. Vincent de Paul and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. Foundation Communities lost federal money for emergency rent assistance in January and has already spent part of its share on six families; corporate engagement manager Miller Wilbourn said it could keep as many as 100 households housed over the next year. The medical debt share could erase at least $14 million of it. "We get an opportunity to actually practice what we preach," said Whitney Bell, the church's director of mission. "To actually put our money where our mouth is." KVUE